PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES ON SCHOOL BASED CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: IN SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF SIDAMA ZONE

<strong>ABSTRACT: </strong>The purpose of this study was to assess the practices and challenges of school based continuous professional development in selected secondary schools of Sidama Zone. The research design in this study was concurrent research design along with mixed methods. Questionnaires were used to collect data from 117 teachers and 30 school principals selected by using proportional and purposive sampling respectively. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 6 continuous professional development facilitators, 6 woreda education office TDP coordinators, and 6 cluster supervisors with the total of 165 participants out of study populations. The data gathering tools employed were questionnaire, interview. Then, the data gathered through closedended questionnaire was analyzed using percentage, frequency, standard deviation, mean score and t-test while the data gathered through interview and open-ended questions were narrated qualitatively. The findings indicated that the extent to which the implementation of CPD program effective in the school activities such as identifying the CPD problems clearly and stetted its priorities, preparing CPD annual plan, portfolio development, and the activities reporting system the end of every session to overall successes and failures of the implementation processes were below expected. The major challenges identified were, lack of training, lack of CPD manuals, lack of genuinely prepared CPD plans, less commitment, lack of motivation, insufficient allocation of budget, lack of appropriate follow up and support, and lack of awareness were identified by this research as the serious challenges of Continuous Professional Development realization in selected secondary schools. Generally to overcome the challenges encounteredorienting teachers in advance with the overall contents of the professional growth, motivating teachers to willingly take more responsibilities in the implementation process, employing trained facilitators, and allocation of sufficient resources to effectively achieve the intended goals.