1 Introduction

Madrasah is an Islamic educational institution which continously improves education quality in order to meet the demand of the time. Therefore, it is not surprising if there are always changes in madrasah, especially in the curriculum [1,2,3,4,5,6]. In addition, the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) as a govermnet department which is responsible for the quality of madrasah is always making diversifications in education, such as giving life skills in madrasah aliyah (Islamic senior high school) which is a kind of educational diversification in vocational MA [7, p. 204]. According to Murray, et.al, only about 30% of MA graduates pursue their study into higher education, while the rest is working in informal sector or even unemployed [8, p. iii]. It means that MA students need skill to face their life after finishing their study.

Actually, life skill program has become a part of MA curriculum since a half and three decades ago, when the MoRA made an agreement with UNDP/UNESCO on 14 December 1987 with the project number INS 85/036. The agreement was in the form of making pilot project on life skill program in madrasah aliyah consisting of three kinds of life skill: electronics, automotive, and fashion [9, p. 203, 10, p. 1]. The agreement run up to three periods. In the first period, three MAs were addressed as the pilots: MAN (State Madrasah Aliyah) Garut, MAN Kendal, and MAN Jember [10, p. 1]. At the second period, five MAs were added to become new pilot madrasahs. In the first and second period, the project was funded by UNDP. In the third period, however, the project was funded by Islamic Development Bank (IDP) with the document number INDO 053 dan 054 signed on 30 November 1995 [9, p. 188, 10, p. 1] and 82 MA were addressed to participate in the program (interview, informant 3 and 4, 9 September 2021). During the agreement periods, the program was fully supported by the MoRA and those cooperating institutions. The teachers, materials, and workshops were provided by the project. MA which provides life skill program for their students are called as “MA Keterampilan”.Footnote 1

As the agreement ended, the MA which had joined the program, had to struggle for the continuity of life skill program in the schools, because there were no more financial supports from the ministry. Due to some reasons, some MA continued the life skill program while some others did not. As an illustration, in Lampung, there were 11 MA registered as “MA Keterampilan” in 2016 but in 2020 the number decreased into 5 MAs. So were in Banten and Bali. In 2016, there were 19 and 9 MA which provided life skill program for the students, but in 2020 the number changed into 7 and 3 respectively [11, 12].

Moreover, even some certain MAs which joined the program at early phase, especially at the third phase, when the program was still fully funded by the ministry, seemed to be less encouraged to continue the program. Some of them that were addressed as the piloting madrasas were not considered as MA Keterampilan anymore. They prefer other types of MA (such as Research MA, Digital MA, Academic MA, etc.) to MA Keterampilan. MAN 3 Yogyakarta, for example, which was also addressed as MA Keterampilan together with MAN 2 Kulonprogo, is not recognized as MA Keterampilan. The school is more famous as research MA and digital MA. The MA was neither listed in the Decree of General Director of Islamic Education Number 4924/2016 nor 2831/2020).

By contrast, MAN 2 Kulonprogo (which is usually called as MANDAKU, so is in this writing) is still encouraged to pursue the program. The school is continuously creating innovation to develop the program. Even, in the future, the school will be projected as vocational Islamic senior high school (MA Kejuruan) and becomes the only MA Kejuruan in Yogyakarta Province and one of three state vocational Islamic senior high schools (MA Kejuruan Negeri) in Indonesia.

One of MANDAKU’s innovation is Motefa (modified teaching factory), a modified-characterized teaching learning model in vocational school. By this innovation, MANDAKU became the representative of the MoRA of Republic of Indonesia in the Public Service Competition held by the Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform of Republic of Indonesia (Kementerian PAN-RB) in 2020. The innovation also become the Top 45 public service innovations [13]. These are appreciable factors to lead MANDAKU an important madrasah among other MA Keterampilan. In addition, the school is also reported as having some good points, such as good at making network, life skill education and training [8, p. 38] and marketing [14, p. 40]. Therefore, it is considerable to dig more information about education practice in the school.

This article is discussing about motefa, one of MANDAKU’s strategies to develop life skill program in the madrasah. The study is important to inspire especially other 333 MA Keterampilan in Indonesia to make innovation in the field. It also will present a more comprehensive picture of life skill teaching learning process in the school.

As far as we are concerned, based on literature search, there is no study about this modified teaching factory yet. Most writing about vocational and life skill programs talk about policies [15], program design [16,17,18], implementation [9], [19,20,21,22] evaluation [7, 23], mapping [8], and public perception on the program [24]. So rare are articles discussing about features of certain vocational teaching learning method in certain school. The most common (and somehow similar to this article) is writings talking about the implementation [25,26,27,28,29], development [30,31,32], and evaluation [23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33] of the teaching factory in vocational schools. Although they are also discussing about teaching factory, this study, however, is different because of the term “modified” itself in the “motefa”. Therefore, there is something really unique from the teaching factory applied in MANDAKU from teaching factory conducted by other vocational schools.

Teaching factory is a concept which got much attention in the last three decades. In America, the concept has resulted in many piloting projects in education and business spheres [34, p. 31], while in Indonesia, the teaching factory concept took its simplest form with the development of production unit in vocational senior high schools in 2000 [35, p. 4]. The term “teaching factory” then become a “standard” concept in teaching learning process in vocational schools in 2011, when Indonesian government eagerly developed a conceptual framework of “factory as a learning center” in vocational schools [35, p. 3].

At the same time, Indonesian government also made agreement with Germany to develop teaching factory. The agreement project was called as Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). The program basically adapted the dual teaching system which was previously applied in Germany and Swiss. By the system students are provided with two environments at the same time, namely school environment and manufacture environment. With this system students can sharpen their basic competence (in school environment) and practice their skills (company environment) at the same time [35, p. 4]. In other words, teaching factory is a teaching learning model which bridge theoretical field and practical one; a model which trains students as if they are working in real industrial world.

The concept “teaching factory” itself stems from medical world, especially in terms of medical school which operates in parallel with hospitals [34, p. 32–36, p. 190] so that students can practice their knowledge in practical world. Therefore, the students can integrate academic field with working field where they can attain more relevant experiences (more realistic).

There are two models in applying teaching factory, namely “factory-to-classroom” and “academia-to-factory/lab-to-factory” [34, p. 32–36, p. 191], [37, pp. 2–3]. The “factory-to-classroom” model, as it is named, is transferring industrial environment into learning environment (classes). By the first model, students will know more about industrial atmosphere, daily production process, and any other industrial matters in detail [34, p. 32–36, p. 191]. Through this first model, students are provided with a set of tasks in product/production lifecycle, such as line balancing new production line. This is then broken down and distributed into some students who are grouped into teams. The students have to work to find solution to the problem. They can communicate to each other, using technologies to communicate with engineers, or using modern tools for developing and validating their ideas and solution.

In order to run the “factory-to-classroom” model, there are two approaches: “one to one” or “one to many”. By one-to-one approach means one factory for one classroom, while by the other means one factory for more than one classrooms. In other words, one factory interacts with some classes at the same time [34, p. 32–36, p. 191] (Rentzos, dkk. 2014:191; Rentzos, dkk. 2015:32).

The other model of teaching factory is “academic-to-factory” which is also called as “lab-to-factory”. This is different from the first model. By the second model, knowledge is transferred from academic realm into industrial environment. Equipment and facilities used in learning process is to be validated by students and researchers. The new knowledge is then transferred back to industrial world to support making decision process or introduce management team with new concept or technology in industrial world. By “academic-to-factory” any equipment or technologies installed in classes can be used as demonstrators for new technologies or concepts. According to Rentzos, et. al, [34, p. 32], the second model is suitable for training because there are many new concepts/technologies in industrial world which is too costly and time consuming to be industrially tested on their actual production. By teaching factory, the new concept can be validated by students and researchers. Therefore, teaching factory becomes a bridge to the gap between industrial and academic innovation [38, p. 6.943.1].

The main purpose of teaching factory is providing students with complete knowledge and skills in manufacture world, not only learning what is written on books (theoretical matters) but also direct experiences in working fields with all its management and problems, such as making proposals, making prototypes, making solution and decision, dealing with deadlines, making interpersonal communications, team working, etc. [39, p. 3]. In short, as it is stated by Nurtanto, et.al. [32, p. 451], teaching factory has double benefits: a place for learning as well as a place for working (entrepreneurship).

2 Method

This is a qualitative study. In order to gain sufficient data, the researcher conducted some techniques, such as document study, observation, and interviews. Study document was performed to any relevant written sources relating to the needed data, especially related to the MANDAKU, such as school profile, schedule, and curriculum documents. Observation was conducted in the madrasah environment. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic situation and some medical procedures, the researcher could not observe the program neither directly nor naturally. Therefore, the data which ideally gained from observation technique was completed by another technique, namely interviews, which was conducted to the principal, the program coordinator, the teachers of the subjects for life skill program, teachers of Islamic education, students, and local peoples.

Interview applied in this research was unstructured interview in which the questions listed in interview guideline were not raised in sequence. In addition, by using unstructured interview, the researcher and informants were in equal position so that two-way interaction was highly possible [40, p. 61]. Moreover, the researcher also conducted focused-group discussion to explore more information about the program. The focused-group discussion was conducted once in the meeting room of MANDAKU with the program supervisor, four program instructores, one external researchers, and two other teachers of life skill program.

In terms of data analysis, this study used Miles’ and Huberman’s model which is divided into three main steps: data reduction, data display, and drawing conclusion/verification. Although this analysis model consists of three steps, it does not mean that the step one has to be completely done before the second and the third steps. It also does not mean that the researcher had to finish collecting field data before analyzing them. By using this interactive model, the researcher conducted data analysis before, during, and after field-data collection. In certain condition, the researcher could move from data reduction to data display and came back to data reduction, but in other condition, the researcher moved from data reduction to verification [41, p. 83].

The research was conducted in September 7, 2022,–October 21, 2022.

3 Result and Discussion

3.1 MANDAKU and Its Life Skill Program

MANDAKU is one of 11 MA Keterampilan in Yogyakarta Province or 333 in Indonesia. The madrasah was addressed as MA Keterampilan in about 1998/1999, in the third period of agreement between Indonesian government and UNDP (interview, informant 3 and 4, 9 September 2020) which was funded by IDB [9, 10, p. 1].

At the beginning, MANDAKU served 3 programs for the students: electronics, fashion, and agricultural technology. However, when this study was conducted, MANDAKU had provided five life skill programs: fashion, audio visual technology, visual communication design, agribusiness and agriculture technology, and cooking. Audio visual technology and visual communication programs were actually the development of electronics, while agribusiness and agricultural technology was previously agricultural technology. In other words, from the beginning, MANDAKU has provided no totally new programs but cooking which was begun in 2017/2018.

Each group (class) of the program contains of 24–26 students. Since MA Keterampilan is different from regular school, student organization into classes is also different. The students of life skill programs are distributed into some different classes. A regular class may contain students from two life skill programs. However, on the schedule of certain program, the students will group into same classes of the same program to learn materials (Table 1).

Table 1 The number of students of each life skill programs
Full size table

Although distributed into some classes, the number of the students are relatively the same as presented by Table 1.

3.2 Motefa: Modified Teaching Factory in MANDAKU

Motefa had been implemented in MANDAKU since 2018. According to Imam Muttaqien, there are four main pillars in motefa. They are block system schedule, job sheet, product oriented, and working attitude. These four pillars are inspired by a meeting held by the ministry of education and culture in 2017, when some vocational teachers were trained to upgrade their skills in teaching. At that meeting one of the presented materials was about teaching factory which outlined procedures and principals in conducting teaching factory model in vocational schools.

3.2.1 Block System Schedule

This system is a characterized learning schedule and popular enough in vocational schools but not in other school types. The main principal of this system is giving students same materials continuously in a longer period of time, one or two weeks depending on the material difficulties or other considerable factors. It means that the teacher will not give new materials before the earlier materials are completely studied. This schedule system is different from the schedule of other subjects where in the later the materials could be divided into some parts and delivered separately. By separately here means the materials are not given continuously and consequentially.

In order to run this system, a class is divided into some smaller groups consisting of 5–6 students. Each group is taught or trained different materials and skills so that in certain period of times competence or skills needed to make a certain product are fulfilled. In other words, in a same time, the students of a certain major are not taught same materials. That is the striking difference between the block system schedule in vocational schools in general or in MANDAKU in particular and schedule system from other majors.

To make it more understanding the block system in MANDAKU, here is the sample of the schedule of audio-visual technology grade X, XI, and XII. From the schedule we can see that a student is taught same material for one or two weeks. He/she will not get new materials before the earlier materials completely taught. Moreover, we also know that students in the same class are taught different materials (Table 2).

Table 2 The schedule of audio-visual technology program using block system
Full size table

3.2.2 Job Sheet

The second component of motefa is job sheet. It is a list of activities as a guidance for students to make a certain product. This job sheet consists of some working sheets which guide students to make a certain product. It lists some procedures and the technical guidance. Therefore, the students have to obey the listed procedures. The teacher supervises and controls the procedures done by the students and will put the sign on each procedure if he/she finds the students performed the activity well according to the guidelines. By this job sheet and putting teachers’ sign on each procedures the product created by students is suitable for competence required for students and the quality of the product is guaranteed.

3.2.3 Product Oriented

The third component of motefa is product oriented. The product has to fulfill quality and consumers’ standards. At the beginning, the targeted consumers are the MANDAKU community (the students, staffs, teachers) and the other is wider community. By wider community here is community outside the MANDAKU. In order to reach wider community, the MANDAKU products are sold in local markets or entrusted to some shops to be sold. The products for internal consumers are usually the products made by the tenth-grade students, while the products to be sold to external consumers (wider community) are the products of the eleventh and twelfth grade students. This policy is based on the consideration the students from higher grades are considered to be more capable and competent than that of the lower grade.

Some products made by the MANDAKU students are mask, mask connector, madrasah uniform, pisgrow (pizza growol), stikgrow (stik growol), various keripik (chips), some bread, instant drink from ginger extract, pin, mug, and robot. The related fashion products were made by the students of fashion class, meal products were made by the students of Agribusiness and Agriculture Technology, pin and mug were done by the students of Visual Communication Design.

Discussing about the products of MANDAKU, this madrasah has more positive image than other madrasah because it has characterized products, namely some products made from “growol”, such as “stik growol”, “pizza growol”, and “pizza growol”. The “growol” is local comestibles which is made from cassava. It needs long process to make growol. Although growol is so popular for the local people, the growol by MANDAKU is different in terms of the texture and ingredients. The story behind “growol” production by MANDAKU was an accidental story when a teacher of life skill program in MANDAKU soaked the cassava for too long. As a result, the texture of the soaked cassava was over soft. Confused with the unexpected texture, the teacher then thought to make “growol” stick, a sort of growol products of MANDAKU which is licensed halal by the BPJPH (Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Prodduk Halal, a governmental institution dealing with issues halal of products in Indonesia. The license was handed to the MANDAKU principal on 27 May 2020. The halal license will be valid for five years [42, 43].

The second factor making “growol” products of MANDAKU different from other “growol” products lies on the mixed ingredients. If the mixed ingredients of growol of other people is tapioca flour, the “growol” products of MANDAKU were mixed with wheat fluor.

3.2.4 Working Attitude

The last component of the motefa in MANDAKU is working attitude. By working attitude here is that students are taught and treated as if they were in real industrial environment, as if they were working in the real factory in which they have to work in high discipline, serious, and full of responsibility. They have to work according to standard operating procedures including using personal protective equipment.

These are the common attitudes in industrial environment which are considered not enough for the students of life skill program in MANDAKU. MANDAKU gives other good attitudes to be performed by the students during the process of teaching learning life skills, good Islamic attitudes which are named as akhlaaqul kariimah (good behaviors). This is additional positive attitudes implemented in the teaching factory model in MANDAKU.

In order to implement akhlaqul kariimah, the MANDAKU has some programs, such as 5 S (Senyum, Salam, Sapa, Sopan, dan Santun; Smile, Salutation, Greeting, Polite, and ethical), morning greeting (making shaking hands) between teachers and staffs in the madrasah, morning literacy activities in the form of reading the Qur’an or other selected books, reciting asmaul husna, performing morning prayer (shalat dhuha), morning dhikr, performing dhuhur prayer in congregation, kultum (short religious sermon after dhuhur prayer), and clean Friday.

These good behaviors are integrated in teaching factory and become the positive values for the MANDAKU as well as identity which make the madrasah different from other vocational schools.

According to the teachers of life skill program in MANDAKU, these good Islamic characters are so important in industrial environment. In addition, the integration of the good characters into teaching factory will give benefits to the students of MANDAKU and will elevate their acceptance level, especially after they finish the study and step into working place. When two applicants come to an employer, the first is a skillful person with lack of good characters and the second is a skillful with good characters, the employer must choose the second one. Even if the two applicants are a skillful person and less-skillful with good characters, the employer should choose the later over the first, because a less-skillful people could be trained in two or three months to reach better technical competence, while good character could not be implemented quickly. It needs a long habituation and cultivation from the early life (informant 2 and 3, interview, 9 September 2022).

In order to emphasize the importance of akhlakul karimah (good characters) in the life skill program, more specifically in teaching factory model, they become a considerable factor in evaluation. In other word, the final score of the students do not merely come from theoretical and practical aspects, but also from akhlakul kariimah aspect. Therefore, the life skill program teachers ask other teachers (especially the teachers of Islamic education and Pancasila and civic education) and staffs to take a part in evaluating the students.

4 Conclusion

Modified Teaching Factory (motefa) is a new breakthrough created by the teachers of life skill program in MANDAKU. It has helped the madrasah existed in maintaining the program which was not financially supported by the Ministry of Religious any longer. It contains of four components, namely block system schedule, job sheet, product oriented, and working attitudes emphasizing on akhlakul karimah (Islamic good characters) in addition to professional characters in industrial environment. The fourth component becomes the identity which differentiate the madrasah from others.

In addition, due to the product oriented, this madrasah has produced some processed food made from “growol”, a characterized comestibles from Kulonprogo. Although the “growol” is so popular in the area, the product made by the MANDAKU is different from other growol in terms of texture. Moreover, the processed-food products from MANDAKU are halal licensed by the BPJPH (Badan Penyelenggara Jaminan Produk Halal), a governmental institution which deals with the issue of halal for food in Indonesia, starting from the registration, verification, and supervision of halal for various products in Indonesia.