RIAU ISLANDS — In addition to establishing the SMART Ekselensia school in Bogor, Dompet Dhuafa through the Riau Islands Branch in Batam also established Sekolah Tahfidz STAR Ekselensia. This school is located in the area of Ustazah Yanti’s house on Jl. Gelatik 4, Belian, Batam City District, Batam City. She is also the regent as well as Principal of STAR Ekselensia Dompet Dhuafa.
The existence of this tahfiz school is a result of Ustazah Yanti’s anxiety when she wanted to send her children to school in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, her friends also had the same anxiety. Then, they tried to encourage Ustazah Yanti to organize a tahfiz lecture program for children.
“I’ve been teaching the Qur’an for a long time and accompanying my own children to memorize the Qur’an. There are some friends who also know this, they then ask me to teach their children tahsin and memorization. Finally, we create a tahfiz school program,” she told Dompet Dhuafa on Tuesday (14/3/2023).
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Together with Dompet Dhuafa Kepri, a tahfiz school program called STAR Ekselensia was established for the new academic year of 2021/2022. Now, the school already has two batches with a total of 10 students.
This tahfiz school targets memorization for each student as much as one juz in each semester. While the learning period at this school lasts for six years, just like elementary school (SD) level. However, said Ustazah Yanti, it is possible that it can also be taken in just five years.
“It also depends on the age when the student enters, and the ability to catch up with the memorization, because there are also those who enter when they are in grade 1 or grade 2 of elementary school. In class, they’re actually in grade 2 or grade 3,” she explained.
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The name Ekselensia was chosen because it was inspired by the name of the Dompet Dhuafa’s school in Bogor, namely SMART Ekselensia. It is hoped that with this name, the students at STAR Ekselensia have excellent abilities.
Meanwhile STAR stands for Sekolah Tahfiz Anak dan Remaja (Tahfiz School for Children and Adolescents). Although currently the students are still in the 2nd level of the first year, this name becomes a hope, so that in the next five years there will be students from teenagers, equivalent to junior high schools.
“Because it is just starting, so at this time the students are still at the children level. Later, it is hoped that these children will continue until they become adolescence. But for now, teenagers have actually been represented by one student in the afternoon class,” continued this Batam native woman.
With a target of 1 semester 1 juz, so the target of memorization until graduation is as much as 10 to 20 juz. This goal is considered very good, remembering that this program is not a tahfiz house program that requires memorizing 30 juz, but a memorization program that is still embedded with general knowledge like a public elementary school.
“For memorizing 30 juz, we’re not able to do it because we still haven’t found the method yet. So we think 1 semester 1 juz is good enough. The important thing is that children are familiar with the Qur’an first, so that later they can continue to memorize themselves,” added this mother of 3 children. (Dompet Dhuafa/Muthohar)