This study aimed to explore the nature of the continuous professional development (CPD) programme adopted in Ethiopian schools and the underlying contextual factors that constrained its implementation by examining primary school teachers’ perspectives. Twenty-four primary school teachers from four schools participated in the study. A qualitative case study design was employed, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document review to get insights about teachers’ school-based CPD practices. The analysis of the data found that CPD was considered a top-down, undifferentiated, less relevant in contents, and bureaucratic activity that has little to do with the professional development of teachers. On the other hand, CPD appeared to be dependent on the school and the local educational leadership contexts. The political, economic and social environment also tended to affect teachers’ motivation to aspire for teaching in general and CPD in particular.

This qualitative case study explores the practices of school-based teacher collaborative reflection based on the experiences of Ethiopian primary school teachers. Guided by constructivist epistemology, data were collected via in-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and document reviews, and field notes. The findings revealed that teachers are compelled to engage in school-based collaborative reflection for professional learning through mandatory collaborative teams. This sharply contrasts with teachers’ long-standing norms of autonomy that appreciate independence and non-reliance. As a result, in order for a school-based collaborative practice to be reflective and successful, the tension between teacher autonomy and the need for collaboration must be resolved. Moreover, the findings disclosed that teacher collaborative reflection is a widely touted subject but less of a reality in the context of Ethiopian primary schools because of context-specific structural and cultural factors.

Teachers’ professional learning in the workplace is of great interest, for it is believed to positively impact the quality of teaching and learning. To this end, this qualitative case study explored the lived experiences of teachers involved in workplace professional learning (WPL) practices in Ethiopian primary schools. Guided by the constructivist paradigm, data were collected via in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and document review. The findings from the study disclosed that WPL practices of teachers were highly prescriptive, and it was driven by the schools’ learning needs over the needs of individual teachers. The teachers are less autonomous to decide on the focus of their learning needs. This, in turn, has resulted in discontinuous professional learning practice partly because of the disparity between the school’s learning needs and those of the teachers’ needs.