Policy Debate in Ethiopian Teacher Education: Retrospection and Future Direction

Though, Ethiopia registered an extraordinary achievement in terms of increasing student enrolment, still quality of education remains a challenge and is becoming a bottleneck. One of the problems might be the structure and nature of teacher education itself. The purpose of this study therefore was to critically examine the existing literature and policy documents and come up with effective as well as valuable modality of teacher education which will be workable in Ethiopian context. In Ethiopia, there are two extreme views that can be taken as challenges for teacher education program: pedagogical knowledge vs. subject matter knowledge. There is also contention on the modality of teacher education: concurrent vs. consecutive. The study show that the greatest ever challenge in teacher education is registered during the Post-TESO period. The program is troubled. Based on the results of this study, imperative implications for practice are forwarded.