Jakarta, Oct. 14 -- Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister Nasaruddin Umar on Tuesday underscored the government's commitment to improving safety standards at Islamic boarding schools ( pesantrens ) and places of worship nationwide, calling it a key national priority.

Speaking at the signing of a joint agreement on pesantren infrastructure management, Umar said many religious sites were built in disaster-prone areas, including landslide zones.

He noted that Indonesia currently has 42,369 pesantrens , all privately operated, while only about five percent of Islamic schools, or madrasahs , are state-run.

As an initial step, the ministry is partnering with faith-based universities that have engineering faculties to inspect the structural ...