Teachers Professional Development in schools: Reflection on the Move to Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Abstract

Professional development of teacher is acknowledged to be centrally important in maintaining and enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in schools. Cognizant of this, nationwide professional development has been designed and enacted since 2003 in Ethiopia. This paper aims to reflect on the practices of teachers’ professional development in schools. In so doing, it relied on the narratives of three informants, current literature and the experiences of the researcher as an insider and teacher educator. Methodologically, the study employed narrative research, which is the process of studying and understanding experience through story telling. The findings indicated that the participants found the current teacher professional development problematic and unhelpful to bring the desired change in teachers classroom practice and student learning. The available teacher professional development was narrowly understood, poorly practiced, and orchestrated tightly from the top

Keywords

• Teacher, professional development, school, narrative research, learning, Ethiopia

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