The Ministry's new rules for promoting teachers

The directive is called the General Education Teachers' Career Promotion Directive No. 1148/2018. The Ministry issued it under General Education Proclamation No. 1368/2017, and it applies to teachers in government schools, from pre-primary up to secondary. The report says its aim is to reward teachers whose teaching gets strong results, to raise their motivation and to improve the quality of education.

The career ladder has seven levels. A teacher spends 2 years as a beginner teacher before moving to junior teacher, and 3 years at each level after that.

Promotion is by competition. A teacher who competes twice and is not promoted either time, whether the two attempts were back to back or years apart, cannot compete a third time.

• A degree or diploma from a recognised teacher training institution.
• A professional teaching licence.
• For a beginner teacher, a pass in the exit assessment.
• At least 75 percent of the students they teach scoring 50 percent or more, confirmed by an independent body.
• Short professional training: at least 40 hours for a beginner teacher, and 60 hours from junior teacher upwards.
• Their continuous professional development (CPD) plan carried out properly.

The report says the standards for the higher levels look at research and community service as well as teaching. To move from one level to the next, a teacher must:

• Get a work performance result of 70 to 90 percent.
• Keep an organised portfolio of their work.
• Mentor beginner teachers.
• Support students with special needs and vulnerable students.

From the middle levels upwards, a teacher competing for promotion must also review textbooks and teacher guides, prepare supplementary learning materials, and carry out action research on problems in teaching and learning.

The directive adds a faster route for teachers whose students do very well, again only once an independent body confirms the results:

• A teacher at any level from teacher to lead teacher whose students all score 85 percent or more for two years in a row is promoted after two years instead of three.
• A teacher who brings their students' results to 90 percent or more for three years in a row may skip a level.
• A teacher already at senior lead teacher level gets a two-step salary increase.

Promotions take effect twice a year, on Tir 1 and Hamle 1. In the 2019 E.C. school year those are Tir 1, 2019 E.C. (9 January 2027) and Hamle 1, 2019 E.C. (8 July 2027).

The school's technical committee and the promotion committee review each case, and the woreda education office approves it. The directive includes rules against conflicts of interest. A teacher who disagrees with the decision can appeal within 10 working days of receiving the decision letter.

The directive also has special provisions for teachers on maternity leave, for staff taken out of the classroom by a medical board decision, and for teachers who serve as leaders of teachers' associations. The report does not say what those provisions are.

The report covers most of the directive, but a teacher planning around it still needs answers to these:

• Who the independent body is, and how it will check students' results.
• Which results count: a national exam, a regional exam or the school's own exams, and how a teacher whose classes sit no national exam will be measured.
• Which performance result each level needs within the 70 to 90 percent range, and which level counts as a middle level.
• What the special provisions for maternity leave, medical board cases and association leaders actually say.
• From when the directive applies, and how it treats promotions already in progress.
• Whether anything similar applies to teachers in private schools. The report names government schools only.

Your school's principal or the woreda education office can tell you when a copy of the directive arrives and how it applies to you.