Improving teacher training in Ethiopia: Shifting the content and approach of pre-service teacher education Adrienne E. Barnes a , Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski a , Dawit Mekonnen b , Flavia Ramos-Mattoussi a, * a Learning Systems Institute, Florida State University, C4600 University Center, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4459, United States b Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia highlights  READ-TA established capacity in literacy content knowledge and pedagogical skill.  Teacher educators at the CTEs are striving to incorporate student-centered pedagogy.  Participatory training resulted in knowledge retention for the teacher educators.  Sustainability depends on teacher education, instructional resources, and pedagogy. article info Article history: Received 9 January 2017 Received in revised form 22 October 2017 Accepted 3 November 2017 Keywords: Teacher education Teacher training Literacy Ethiopia International education Development education Multilingual education Early grade reading abstract Teacher education in Ethiopia has undergone multiple reforms, yet primary students still struggle to learn to read. The USAID-funded Reading for Ethiopia's Achievement Developed - Technical Assistance project aimed to reform the primary school curriculum and teacher education to improve instructional approaches to teaching reading and writing. We examine the process and effectiveness of the project's pre-service teacher education component. Impacts on teacher educator pedagogywere observed at Colleges of Teacher Education, including less lecturing and greater use of student-centered teaching and learning approaches. Sustainability depends on the government's efforts to invest in long-term solutions and promote student-centered pedagogy. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. 1. Introduction Over the last 25 years, Ethiopia has experienced policy shifts on curriculum, language, teacher qualifications and pedagogical ap- proaches in addition to a great expansion of the education system. Gross enrollment rates (GER) have jumped from 20 percent in 1992-93 to over 96 percent in 2008-09, with a strong commitment to full enrollment of girls, vulnerable children, and children in rural and pastoralist areas (Method et al., 2010). However, Ethiopia's education system struggles to produce fluent readers. Recent assessments of reading revealed very low skill levels across many parts of the country. The 2010 Mother Tongue Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) results revealed that only 5% of children in first cycle of primary school met the fluency benchmark of 60 words correct per minute, and between 10 and 62 percent of grade 3 students were unable to answer a single comprehension question, depending on region (Piper, 2010; Smith, Stone, & Comings, 2012). This was followed by the 2014 EGRA, which was administered in two Ethiopian languages, Wolayttatto and Hadiyyisa, and similarly found that 36% and 62% of children were unable to answer any reading comprehension questions correctly (RTI International, 2014). * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: adriennebarnes76@gmail.com (A.E. Barnes), szuilkowski@lsi. fsu.edu (S.S. Zuilkowski), dawit_mm@yahoo.com (D. Mekonnen), framos@lsi.fsu. edu (F. Ramos-Mattoussi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.11.004 0742-051X/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Teaching and Teacher Education 70 (2018) 1e11