ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to shed light on the teacher training program and mentorship scheme of the EOTC schools in Ethiopia and the ways in which teaching and the teaching profession is theoretically and ideologically conceptualized and institutionalized in its educational system. In many countries in the Global South, the huge respect the teaching profession used to have a few decades ago is gradually diminishing. Likewise, the quality of teacher education and practice in Ethiopia has been moving from one crisis into anther, and currently learning outcomes are at their historic low. At the backdrop of such grim realities, education reform agenda are expected to look for new and bold inspiration that can help us in re-defining and re-imagining education and the role of teachers. A potential source of such inspiration can be found by paying closer attention to a local and an indigenous education system that has existed for millennia. For thousands of years, the EOTC has practiced in its various monasteries and churches a well-structured and functioning education system. In light of the retrieval of indigenous knowledge systems, this study tries to explore lessons that can be drawn today from this locally based and indigenous education system.
