Professionalism of educators is a demand in responding to various needs and challenges of society in the AEC era. PAI educators are required to carry out meaningful and quality learning about Islamic values in the lives of Muslim generations so that they are able to win the competition in the AEC era. In fact, many PAI educators showed that performance were not yet optimal, as evidenced by the low quality of graduates, the used of methods and media that had not varied. It was feared that the learning process of PAI had not been able to prepare the mentality and religious values of students against AEC challenges. This research is a descriptive research. Data sources were educators (teachers) of Islamic Education joined in the MGMP. Data collection was using questionnaires and interviews. The results of this study showed that most PAI teachers had good religious knowledge (88.71%), but still minimal about AEC. The skills of PAI teachers in organizing learning at a sufficient level (57.14%), but had not fully integrated the insights about the AEC in the learning process. The value and attitudes of PAI teachers in learning were sufficient (50.51%), and there were still those who regard the AEC as unimportant to be discussed and associated with learning. Efforts to improve the professionalism of PAI teachers in responding to AEC challenges undertaken by schools were supervised by the principal, and a small percentage of teachers attended seminars, utilizing libraries and browsing the internet.

Keywords: professionalism, quality, characteristics, educators, performance.