The Alignments between Primary Schools Teachers’ Continuous Professional Development Practices, Performance Evaluation and Career Growths in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia: Past, Present and Future

Purpose: The main purpose of the study was to evaluate the alignments between primary school teachers’ continuous professional development practices, performance evaluation and career growths in Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. Method: A mixed method with concurrent triangulation design was employed in the study. The primary data was collected from a total of 618 respondents. The samples were selected by using purposive, availability, stratified and simple random sampling techniques from different sources of data. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by using descriptive (percentage, average mean, standard deviation) and inferential (one-sample t-test, Pearson correlation and one-way ANOVA) statistics and narration respectively. Results: Principals and supervisors were not committed to make professional decisions to offer professional, technical and material supports to ensure the effectiveness of teachers’ CPD practices. Thus, they didn’t provide enough professional, technical and material supports to ascertain best CPD practices and the achievement of career growths was rated by teachers, mentors and principals (M1=14.72, M2=13.89 & M3=12.34). There was no statistically significant differences of means [F (2, 545) = 1.950, p =0.145] at the p >0.05 level. The misalignment between CPD interventions, career growths and its exclusions from performance evaluation of teachers negatively affected CPD practices. There was statistically significant difference among the means of respondents [F (2, 547) = 105.552, p =0.000] at the p <0.05 level. Conclusions and recommendations: The practical gaps between teachers’ performance evaluation, CPD practices and career growths should be bridged to improve teachers’ career growths, competencies and students’ learning outcomes. The worth given to CPD practices in teachers’ performance evaluation should be upgraded at least to 35% per semester in an academic year. Finally, educational leaders should have optimistic vision, mission and destination to improve teachers’ competencies, career growths and students’ learning outcomes.