Redefining Professionalism: The Impact of Teacher Professional Education on the Identity and Agency of Madrasah and Islamic Education Teachers

Abstract

The professionalism of madrasah teachers and Islamic education (PAI) teachers is often judged by completion of Teacher Professional Education (PPG), while the ways teachers arrange identity and agency are rarely followed as stories. The manuscript offers a directed narrative synthesis of traceable empirical studies and official documents, read through longitudinal narrative inquiry and ecological agency. The corpus includes accounts of teachers in madrasahs and Islamic schools, reports of PPG implementation, studies of PAI teacher identity, Law No. 14 of 2005, Minister of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology Regulation No. 19 of 2024, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs PPG portal. Four findings follow. State recognition and the exemplary role run side by side rather than replacing each other. PPG reports display artifacts of competence more often than negotiation of identity. Madrasah teachers' agency emerges from biography, institutional conditions, and a future direction, including when access to PPG is limited. Relationships inside the madrasah can shift the meaning of supervision, yet no longitudinal account yet follows the same PAI or madrasah teacher before, during, and after PPG. The findings limit any claim that PPG has succeeded once a score or a pass is recorded, and they prepare questions for repeated interviews.