Sinergy of The Boarding Program and The Cambridge Partnership in Educational Management Strategy: Building Excellence and Public Interest

Abstract

Intensifying competition among educational institutions requires madrasah not only to manage resources administratively, but also to formulate and implement management strategies capable of producing a competitive advantage that is difficult for other institutions to replicate. This study aims to analyze the educational strategic management of MAN 4 Jakarta, focusing on the synergy between its boarding program and its Cambridge International curriculum partnership as strategic resources that build both institutional excellence and the school's favored status in the eyes of the public. The study employs a qualitative approach with a case study design. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, questionnaires, observation, and documentation study involving the principal, vice principal, teachers, and education staff, and were analyzed through an interactive model of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification, supported by source and method triangulation to ensure data trustworthiness. The analytical framework combines a functional-area strategy-implementation model marketing, finance/accounting, research and development (R&D), and management information systems with the Resource-Based View (RBV), which evaluates resources against four criteria: valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable. The findings show that resource management at MAN 4 Jakarta is carried out in an integrated manner across functional areas, and that the boarding program combined with the Cambridge partnership forms a resource bundle that is relatively difficult for other madrasah to imitate, since it unites intensive religious formation, around-the-clock learning conditioning, and internationally recognized curriculum credentials within a single educational service package. This synergy is reflected in the strengthening of the school's image and market positioning, as well as in the admission outcomes of boarding-program students to domestic public universities, which have consistently exceeded those of the overall student

body and widened from roughly 6 percentage points in 2024 to roughly 18 percentage points in 2026. This pattern is further corroborated by the school's new-student admission (PPDB) documentation, which shows that total applicants to the boarding program and the Cambridge partnership more than tripled over two academic years (from 1,207 applicants in 2023/2024 to 4,358 applicants in 2025/2026), with the applicant-to-seat ratio also widening sharply for both programs. Nevertheless, this study did not collect data on applicants' motivations or the relative contribution of other factors beyond the boarding–Cambridge synergy, so the link between this synergy and the school's favored public status should still be read as a strong indication rather than a fully causal conclusion.

Keywords: Educational strategic management; Resource-Based View; boarding program; international partnership; school excellence