Caring the Silenced Voices from an Islamic Boarding School-Pesantren: Stories of Volunteer Teachers and Policy Implications

Abstract

The aim of this qualitative inquiry, within the attractions of teaching theoretical framework, was to find out what had attracted voluntary and young English teachers to teaching English in one pesantren (an Islamic boarding school) in Jambi Province, Indonesia. The method that we used was qualitative in the case study approach. The demographic profiles and semi-structured detailed interviews were used to collect the data with twelve volunteer participants. All interview data were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and thoroughly analysed to find differences and similarities among participants associated with the emphasis of the inquiry. The main results revealed that the participants’ hidden and explicit attractors to teach English voluntarily was driven by a strong mixing of the (1) interpersonal attractors: volunteering for personal satisfaction, (2) social service attractors, (3) the furtherance attractors, (4) non material benefit attractors: expectations of no payment, and (5) time attractors: compatible work schedules. Based on the results of this inquiry, providing college scholarships for students from rural or remote areas who are motivated to be become future pesantren teachers and serve their home areas is promising to deal with lack of teachers