INTRODUCTION

Character education is very important for the next generation to be able to maintain their identity as an independent and sovereign nation. Character education has not been fully successful in the world of education in Indonesia, so it is hoped that various curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular educational activities can be utilized as a means of character building.

Character education is expected to be able to have a positive effect on students, because character education is also an effort to help develop the souls of children both physically and spiritually. Character education can also be said to be a system that instills character values in students with awareness, understanding, care and a high commitment to implementing the values that have been set.

Thus it is hoped that students will be able to maintain the habits that have been instilled through the education process and become good characters. In Law number 20 of 2003 it is stated that:

"National education functions to develop and shape dignified national character and civilization in the framework of educating the nation's life, aiming at developing the potential of students to become human beings who believe and fear God Almighty, have noble character, are healthy, knowledgeable, capable, creative, independent , and become a democratic and responsible citizen. To realize character education, of course, support is needed from various parties such as schools, parents, the community as well as the surrounding environment."

Education is sought to be able to develop human potential as a gift from Allah SWT, where humans have a tendency to do good and avoid all bad things.

Therefore, through education, this good potential is fostered and developed in a direction that is in accordance with his birth nature to become a human being of faith and piety as Iqrar has done since he was in his mother's womb. This good potential is expected to become a character and characteristic of his personality as the noblest being.

From good character, personality emerges through commendable behavior or akhlakul karimah as an encouragement that arises from a holy day of conscience, is always right and tends to the essential truth which is based on faith in Allah SWT and is exemplified through the behavior of His Prophet, especially the Prophet Muhmmad Saw.

While the final estuary of good character comes from the characteristics of the Prophet, namely sidiq, amanah, fathonah and tabligh.

Ideally, students who have been educated in character are expected to be able to achieve the goals set out in the national education goals, namely to become human beings of faith, piety, good faith, healthy, knowledgeable, capable, creative, independent, and to become democratic and responsible citizens.

Character education will be closely related to morals, while the understanding of morals is etymologically (lhugotan) akhlaq (Arabic) is the plural form of Khuluq which means character, character.

According to (Munawir, 2007):

"In general, Islamic morals are divided into two, namely noble morals and despicable morals. Noble morals are those that we must apply in our daily life, while disgraceful morals are morals that we must stay away from so that we don't practice them in our daily life.”

Good morals are like good morals towards Allah, such as praying, fasting, dhikr, reading the Koran and praying. While the good morals of fellow human beings such as being honest, greeting and respecting. Furthermore, good morals towards the environment such as not littering, not polluting the air and water, preserving plants and so on.

According to (Mulyasa, 2011):

"Character education has a higher meaning than moral education because character education is not only related to the problem of right and wrong but how to instill habits about the good things in life, so that children/students have high awareness and understanding, as well as care and commitment to apply virtue in everyday life. "

This character education emphasizes spiritual ethics to form a good person. Character is a person's personal qualification that gives unity and strength to the decisions he makes. Therefore character becomes like a person's self-evident.

Character education introduces an integral context and is able to overcome one's own interests and limitations. Character education is also the right and obligation of every citizen.

According to (Munhamer, 2013) states that:

"Character learning in this globalization era requires a breakthrough in innovating learning strategies and methods to be used considering the emergence of various new phenomena that did not exist before. That's why the use of information technology such as the internet, the tendency of democratic families, the flood of foreign cultures, and others, needs to be taken into consideration by character educators when instilling character values in students."

The reality in the field is that education does not fully produce human beings with character and noble character to the fullest as expected, because of limitations such as the lack of integration of character education applied in schools with character education applied or seen by students in their families and also character education that occurs within the community around.

Therefore, the success of character and noble character education is unlikely to succeed if it only relies on education in schools, but there must be integrated and synergistic cooperation with education carried out in families and communities.

In the implementation of character education, of course, there are obstacles such as the lack of optimal achievement of the planned goals because each school has different abilities, from planning to practicing realizing the goals of the previously planned plans. The obstacle that is indeed faced is apart from the lack of integration of character education implemented in schools with character education implemented in the family. The circumstances of the surrounding environment are sometimes unfriendly to the character education that has been implemented in schools.

Strengthening character education is an effort to grow and equip the next generation to have good character, high literacy skills, and have superior 21st century competencies, namely being able to think critically and analytically, creatively, communicatively, and collaboratively.

Presidential Regulation Number 87 of 2017 concerning Strengthening Character Education (PPK) makes character education as:

"The education movement is under the responsibility of the education unit to strengthen the character of students through harmonization of heart, taste, thought and sport with involvement and cooperation between education units, families and communities as part of the National Movement for Mental Revolution (GNRM). )” (Article 1, paragraph 1).

This Presidential Decree is the starting point for putting character education back as the main soul in the implementation of education in Indonesia, strengthened by the issuance of the Minister of Education and Culture Number 20 of 2018 concerning Strengthening Character Education in Formal Education Units. Strengthening Character Education is a national policy that must be implemented in every training in order to increase teacher competency.

Strategy to strengthen character education is an unresolved problem in line with the complexity of environmental changes, both in terms of planning, implementation and evaluation.

The problems that arise are also caused by the lack of unity between the school and parents regarding character education strategies. This problem occurs because the empowerment of students' raw inputs is not yet optimal; instrumental input empowerment includes curriculum, educators and educational staff, facilities, and costs; coupled with the not optimal involvement of environmental input consisting of family, community and stakeholders.

This problem needs to be further researched so that valid data can be found and at the same time alternative solutions can be determined in an effort to increase the strengthening of character education in order to produce students with noble character. for human survival in the future.

Given the breadth of the problems formulated, the researchers limit the problems related to the problems of planning, implementing and evaluating character education strengthening strategies that are not running optimally.

The general objective of this research is to find out strategies for strengthening character education in elementary schools.

1. Planning a strategy to strengthen character education in fostering akhlakul karimah elementary school students

2. Implementation of strategies to strengthen character education in fostering akhlakul karimah elementary school students.

3. Assessment of strategies to strengthen character education in fostering akhlakul karimah elementary school students.

4. Constraints and solutions in strengthening character education in fostering akhlakul karimah elementary school students.

RESEARCH METHODS

The approach in this study is a qualitative approach, emphasizing its analysis on descriptive data in the hope of producing an overview of strategies to strengthen character education in fostering akhlakul karimah elementary school students.

After all the data has been collected, the next step is data management and analysis. What is meant by data analysis is the process of systematically searching for and compiling data obtained from interviews, field notes, and documentation, by organizing the data into categories, describing them into units, synthesizing them, compiling them into patterns, selecting which ones are important and will be studied, and make conclusions so that an overview of the results of the research will be obtained.

Data collection techniques in this study were interviews, observation and documentation. Testing the validity of the data in research, often only emphasizes the validity and reliability tests. In qualitative research, the main criteria for research data are valid, reliable and objective. Validity is the degree of accuracy between the data that occurs on the object of research with data that can be reported by researchers.

Thus valid data is data that "does not differ" between the data reported by the research and the data that actually occurs in the research object (Sugiyono, 2013).

According to (Moleong, 2015) to determine the validity of a data inspection technique is needed, where the examination includes extension of participation, observation persistence, triangulation, peer checking, referential adequacy, negative case studies and member checking.

The method used uses a descriptive method with case studies. The research method is a method used to obtain data according to needs, as stated by (Sugiyono, 2018) who argues that the research method is defined as a scientific way to obtain data with specific goals and uses.

By studying as much as possible an individual, a group, or an event, the researcher aims to provide a complete and in-depth view of the subject under study.

The case study method was chosen as the method in this study because the problems studied occurred in certain places and situations. The use of the case study model in this study was based on the consideration that the research was conducted in elementary schools. The case study method focuses more on a case, while the case referred to in this study is to provide an overview of Strengthening Character Education Strategies.

In this study the data collection used was in the form of observation, interviews and documentation. In making observations, researchers can collect data as well as interact with research subjects.

This study uses semi-structured interviews for data collection. Researchers make questions that have been arranged systematically and then the interviewer can ask about the opinion of the interviewees about the object of research. Subjects who were used as respondents were school principals, PAI teachers, and committees. This study uses documentation in the form of notes and photographs.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The planning process is a process in which the principal prepares a program so that the program is implemented properly.

According to George R. Terry, 1958 in the Principles of Management (Sukarna, 2011) divides into four basic management functions namely, Planning (Planning), Organizing (Organizing), Actuating (Implementation of Controlling (Supervision). These four management functions are abbreviated as POAC the first, planning (planning).

The first findings in the field were carried out in preparing the plan by first determining the goals, then forming a committee for implementing the strategy for strengthening character education in fostering students' morals by using exemplary and disciplinary strategies.

The implementation of another agenda is the implementation of a strategy to strengthen character education which is carried out in the form of parenting in elementary schools, which is a collaboration between the school and the parents of students, where the implementation of this program is carried out every four times a year involving all school members, namely the principal, teachers, and parents of students. Apart from that, other involvement came from invited guests as well as resource persons who were deliberately invited by the school.

The presenters who filled the event came from community leaders who were very influential in the environment. According to (Permadi, 2016) in his book:

"Broadly speaking, there are three forms of education services, namely educating, teaching, and training. The three can be distinguished but difficult to separate. Educating is more focused on aspects of personality, especially affective, conative, attitudes, values, moral aspects which are all called character education. Character education can be interpreted as values education, character education, moral education, character education, which aims to develop students' ability to make decisions good and bad, maintain goodness, realize and spread goodness in everyday life with all my heart. In this case the topic in this discussion is expected to be an applicable discourse in life."

Evaluation for parenting programs is the process of identifying to measure the extent to which the implemented program is in accordance with the plans or goals to be achieved, evaluation is needed in this parenting program activity, so as to increase the effectiveness and productivity of all personnel who carry out or are involved in parenting activities this.

Evaluations are carried out periodically, evaluations in elementary schools are carried out twice in each implementation of parenting activities, that is, when the activity program is in progress with discussions and questions and answers that aim to find out how far parents understand in discussing the material presented.

The second evaluation is after completing parenting activities by holding small meetings and discussions with all personnel involved in parenting activities. institutions and teachers.

The aspects that are evaluated are matters related to the parenting program activities. It is hoped that all parents who take part in this activity can increase their knowledge and understand about how to educate and raise children and there will be changes in the behavior of the children as well as the attitude of the parents will be better. The process in carrying out the evaluation is seen from 1) the level of progress of the parenting program, 2) the level of achievement of parenting activities according to their objectives, 3) things that must be done/improved in future parenting activities.

While the evaluation for students is carried out in the classroom by observing the behavior of students, both the behavior of fellow students and towards the teacher.

CONCLUSION

In carrying out the strategy of strengthening character education in accordance with the Law on the National Education System Number 20 of 2003 Article 3: "National education functions to develop abilities and form dignified character and national civilization in the framework of educating the nation's life, aiming at developing the potential of students to become human beings who believe in and fear God Almighty, have noble character, are healthy, knowledgeable, capable, creative, independent, and become democratic and responsible citizens”.

In implementing strategies to strengthen school character education using disciplinary, habituation and parenting strategies.

Planning a strategy to strengthen character education that has been implemented properly, this is evidenced by the existence of a Strategy ˗ Strategies that have been designed such as exemplary strategies really need to be carried out by teachers must be role models because teachers will be looked up to and imitated. Furthermore, the principal conveyed the aspirations of the principal's program which spearheaded the teacher.

Daily activities: students say hello when meeting teachers, educators come early to greet students according to applicable values, students line up before entering class, students pray together before and after studying, students always make it a habit to tidy up their respective seats before leaving class at the end of the learning process, students carry out cleaning pickets,

Weekly habituation activities, carrying out the flag ceremony every Monday, checking the cleanliness of clothes, teeth, nails and hair. Carry out waste bank activities.

Monthly habituation activities: guarding and caring for plants in the school environment, carrying out community service.

Annual habitual activities: commemorating national and religious days, carrying out community service in the school environment, carrying out clean and healthy class competitions as motivation for students, participating in competitions and festivals outside of school.

In addition, there are goals and plans with external parties, namely the social environment and parents who are always active in every agenda held by the school, but in every activity requires funding because every agenda that is held always invites presenters to add insight into morals so that the school must seek This financing does not burden parents.

The strategy of strengthening character education in fostering students' akhlakul karimah has been going according to the initial plan. The form of implementing the character education strengthening strategy program includes the following: In practice all school staff must be the main role models in the school environment and strengthening character education is carried out in class by teachers who have proven to have contained it in the lesson plans, and by carrying out the habits that have been planned and in the KBM.

In carrying out this activity the school cooperates with the parents of students by carrying out the habituation that has been planned and in the KBM

Evaluation of parental empowerment in the strategy of strengthening character education in fostering students' akhlakul karimah is very necessary to see the successes and deficiencies in the implementation of activities organized by the institution, but judging from the results of discussions between parents of students and presenters as well as teachers there are still parents who do not understand the material that has been presented also in the attendance list did not match the expected target.

In implementing the character education strategy the problems that often arise are habituation ˗ habituation which is always done sometimes makes children bored because they do the same thing every day so that some children are ignorant., lack of funding to invite experts in parenting or psychologists., from economic factors , minimal economic background so that parents are too busy working (partly farming) and sometimes forget their children, especially education at school, so they ignore it when they get an invitation from the school. given by the presenters, the limited time for parenting activities is also an obstacle, because to synchronize parents' free time with the time available at school is very difficult, the method of delivering material is monotonous so that it saturates the participants in parent empowerment activities.

The solutions that have been sought by schools include providing understanding, sanctions or warnings to the child, providing material on the results of activities in hard file form and providing a summary of the results of parenting activities through the WA group, motivating parents to always learn and want to ask questions, providing motivation to parents to take part in parenting activities in order to have children with noble moral character, look for new ways so that participants in parent empowerment activities are always enthusiastic.

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