Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was to investigate the policy and practices gaps of teachers’
Continuous Professional Development (CPD) in government secondary schools of North
Showa Zone, Oromia Regional State. The data required for this study were collected from
primary and secondary sources. The primary data were collected from secondary school
teachers, principals, school CPD facilitators, cluster supervisors and woreda education
officials using questionnaire and interview. Teachers were selected by Stratified random,
were as available sampling used to include the rest of the respondents. The questionnaires
were initially distributed to 213 respondents. Among these 202(94.18%) of the respondents
were appropriately filled and returned. In addition, to supplement the questionnaire, semistructured
interview were used for woreda education officials and Cluster supervisors. Data
collected from official document were also used in the analysis and interpretation of the
data. The collected quantitative data were processed using SPSS V-20, and then analyzed
using descriptive statistics, like mean, standard deviation and Percentage. Furthermore,
Chi-square test also used to see if there was a statistically significant differences between
teachers’ and management organs’ responses on difference variables. Based on the
analysis made, the following major findings were obtained. Regarding the extent of CPD
practices, only 60.35% of teachers were participated in the program because of pressure
from principals and officials. In addition, their involvement in major activities of CPD
found at lower level. Moreover, identifying development needs, planning, implementing, and
evaluating CPD were poorly practiced. From these, it is possible to conclude that, CPD is
not achieving its intended objectives in the study area. The implication is that if certain
action is not taken on time, its success in the future will be at risk. Thus, in order to improve
the practices of CPD the following measure will be taken to improve the practice of CPD:
offering training, designing a system that enables to identify and reward best performing
teachers’ in CPD practices; strengthening supervision; arranging annual forum; and
conducting in-depth study on related issues were forwarded as recommendations.