Reconstructing Islamic Educational Management Curriculum for Sustainable Institutional Excellence: A Qualitative Case Study

Abstract

The transformation of Islamic higher education increasingly requires curricula that integrate professional competence, adaptability, and Islamic values while responding to changing institutional and societal demands. This study examines how an Islamic Educational Management curriculum can be reconstructed around the principle of Sustainable Institutional Excellence and how such reconstruction strengthens the achievement of graduate competencies. A qualitative case study was conducted in the Islamic Educational Management Study Program at the State Islamic University of Syekh Wasil Kediri, Indonesia. Data were generated through in-depth interviews with five key informants representing institutional leadership, curriculum management, teaching, and student perspectives, complemented by analysis of curriculum documents, graduate learning outcomes, course structures, and learning plans. Data credibility was established through source and methodological triangulation. The findings reveal a substantive shift in curriculum orientation from sociopreneurship toward Sustainable Institutional Excellence, driven partly by evidence from tracer-study evaluations conducted between 2022 and 2025. This reorientation was accompanied by a reconceptualization of graduate profiles as managers, prospective managers, and consultants. The reconstructed curriculum translates 10 graduate learning outcomes into interconnected knowledge, soft-skill, and hard-skill domains and operationalizes Outcome-Based Education through the alignment of graduate competencies, course learning outcomes, student-centered and project-based learning, assessment, and student outputs. However, implementation remains uneven. The findings suggest that curriculum reconstruction in Islamic higher education should move beyond periodic curriculum revision toward continuous alignment between institutional strategy and measurable graduate competencies.