Report-driven management accountability in primary school curriculum implementation in Ethiopia: is it driving or diverting teachers’ focus?

The study explored teachers’ reflections on management accountability relationships between School Management Bodies (SMBs) and teachers for curriculum implementation in primary schools. An exploratory case study type and a multiple case study research design were employed. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and documentary reviews. The findings reveal that accountability, as conceived by the teachers, is a necessary commandment that promotes reporting, increases the workload to perform urgent work, and fosters greater fear. The result affirms that SMBs primarily hold teachers accountable for the preparation of student-related reports driven by top-down administrative commandments to satisfy the needs of the district education offices to routinize the teachers’ roles and facilitate accountability at a great level. The study also indicates that lowering teachers’ efficiency was the most compelling pressure as a consequence of holding teachers accountable. This study discloses that rigorous penalties were exercised only for teachers’ code of ethics rather than for failures observed during curriculum implementation that contributed to diverting teachers’ focus from classroom curricula practices. The study recommends that the government should re-conceptualize the shift in teachers’ practices and design an innovative educational accountability policy that will intrinsically drive teachers to classroom curricula practices.