The practice of learning post-1994 instructional reforms in Ethiopia: Looking a case primary school through the lens of organizational learning theory

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine school-level learning of post-1994 instructional reforms via the lens of organizational learning theory (OLT) in a sample primary school. Data were collected from three teachers, a school principal and head of Woreda Education Office (WEO) using interviews. Besides, data were collected from review of documents. The collected data were analyzed, narrated and interpreted qualitatively. The results showed that (1) the school displays only limited constructs of organizational learning (OL) and characteristics of a learning organization (LO), (2) team learning seemed the lively agency of learning followed by school-wide learning while teacher as agency were still indiscernible, (3) it seems that self-initiated instructional reforms have been overlooked both in policy and practice while reforms prescribed by MoE were the most focused contents of learning, (4) the influence of team learning and school-wide learning in reforming instruction seems insignificant as audited from teachers’ plans; rather, it resulted in a heap of reports that would be discarded after periodic performance appraisal, (5) the school’s subtle effort of being a learning school was hindered by overdose of prescribed reforms, lack of instructional leadership skills and teachers’ resistance resulting from pedagogical deskilling, subject matter incompetency and reluctance to change. On the basis of these findings, conclusions and implications have been made.


Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine school-level learning of post-1994 instructional reforms via the lens of organizational learning theory (OLT) in a sample primary school. Data were collected from three teachers, a school principal and head of Woreda Education Office (WEO) using interviews. Besides, data were collected from review of documents. The collected data were analyzed, narrated and interpreted qualitatively. The results showed that (1) the school displays only limited constructs of organizational learning (OL) and characteristics of a learning organization (LO), (2) team learning seemed the lively agency of learning followed by school-wide learning while teacher as agency were still indiscernible, (3) it seems that self-initiated instructional reforms have been overlooked both in policy and practice while reforms prescribed by MoE were the most focused contents of learning, (4) the influence of team learning and school-wide learning in reforming instruction seems insignificant as audited from teachers' plans; rather, it resulted in a heap of reports that would be discarded after periodic performance appraisal, (5) the school's subtle effort of being a learning school was hindered by overdose of prescribed reforms, lack of instructional leadership skills and teachers' resistance resulting from pedagogical deskilling, subject matter incompetency and reluctance Animaw Tadesse ABOUT THE AUTHOR Animaw Tadesse (Researcher)completed his first degree in education and his second degree in educational measurement and evaluation. He has been working as a teacher educator for more than a decade, and since 2016 he is working as a policy researcher. His research areas are teacher education, educational assessment & evaluation, educational reforms, and instruction. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at Addis Ababa University in curriculum studies. Ambissa Kenea (PhD) is Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies and Multicultural Education at Addis Ababa University. His research interests include education and diversity (multiculturalism), curriculum development, teachers' professional development, and education for the sociocultural minorities. He has published dozens of scholarly articles on local and international peerreviewed journals.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Since the inauguration of the 1994 Education and training policy, schools in Ethiopia as elsewhere in the world are experiencing multiple of instructional reforms. These reforms have been incorporated in the initial and in-service teacher training programs, especially after the introduction of Teacher Education System Overhaul (TESO) in 2003. Despite those efforts, empirical local studies as well as reports of the government reveal that failure stories overwhelm success. Using organizational learning theory (OLT) as a theoretical framework, this study, therefore, explores how a case public primary school has been learning the reforms in its own context. The findings could initiate other researchers to undertake nationwide studies by using the theoretical framework as new lens. It may also alert education policymakers in the country who often prioritize the top-down policy prescription over the blended and/or bottom-up reforms.

Introduction
Nowadays, technology and pervasive global competitiveness are challenging organizations to easily succeed as they did decades back. Consequently, many companies in the world have experienced failure since market competition for survival is getting very difficult (Ghazzawi & Cook, 2015;Probst & Raisch, 2005). This change makes the importance of the technical rationalist approach to organizational performance dubious (Austin & Harkins, 2008;Fullan, 2007;Hadad, 2017).
Similar to other organizations, school systems fall short of realizing their mission of preparing the young generation for such uncertain world (Darling-Hammond, 2012;Stoll & Kools, 2017). Inability of the education sector in innovating itself, limited professional ability of teachers in preparing the generation and, most importantly, failure of successive educational reforms in improving classroom practices are the typical school realities that represent the challenge (Stoll & Kools, 2017).
Thus, continuous improvement in performance is considered mandatory for organizations' survival. (Maletic et al., 2012;Probst & Raisch, 2005). Despite multiplicity of the suggested solutions in the literature, prioritizing on knowledge and information management becomes indispensable to stay in the global market competitiveness (Hadad, 2017). Consequently, the very source of competitive advantage of the twenty-first-century economy is thought to be "creating, acquiring, and developing knowledge within an organization" (Hadad, 2017: 206). Hence, learning is thought to be a prerequisite for organizations including schools to survive and maximize OP in an environment of rapid change (Murray, 2002;Senge et al., 2012).
Organizational learning (OL) is considered invaluable asset for organizations struggling with change and growth (Murray, 2002). Consequently, it becomes an agendum of hot discussion since the publication of "the fifth discipline", a seminal work authored by Peter Senge (1990). Despite the disparity in singling out a definition for a LO (Wai- Yin Lo, 2004); LOs, according to this author, are: organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together (p. 3) The notion of organizations as learning entities is also debatable. Some argue that organizations learn like human beings do, so that they can search for, store in, retrieve out and interpret information (Walsh & Ungson, 1991;Huber, 1991). Others support the metaphoric perspective that rather consider individuals as learning agents who individually and collectively represent OL (Argyris & Schon, 1978;Wellman, 2009). The metaphoric discourse focuses on the characteristics of a LO instead of the constructs; but both of the discourses seem dominant in explaining the concept of OL. This paper examines the case school as a LO using knowledge from both discourses of OL.
OLT is one of the major theories that is often employed to understand this inbuilt learning in organizations (Argyris & Schon, 1978;Huber, 1991;Senge et al., 2012). The theory views OL as multi-level learning that takes place at individual, team and organizational level (Senge et al., 2012;Giesecke & McNeil, 2004). According to OLT, organizations may know less than its members; such conditions prevail when organizations fail to learn what every member of the organization knows (Argyris & Schon, 1978) or when members lacked the required knowledge and skills to share for or learn from others (Wellman, 2009). Consequently, "the collective organization benefits or suffers from individual capabilities" (Wellman, 2009:37) and its learning culture (Argyris & Schon, 1978). OLT also understands learning in organization in terms of change in cognition, behavior/action, and in both thinking and action (Qin & Li, 2018;Park, 2006;Scott, 2011;Senge et al., 2012). The thinking perspective of OLT operationalizes OL in terms of organization's capacity to search, store, retrieve and interpret knowledge (Huber, 1991), while the action perspective understands learning in organizations in terms of change in the behavior of the entities of learning (Watkins & Marsick, 1996). Huber (1991) synthesized four constructs linked to the thinking perspective namely knowledge acquisition, information distribution, information interpretation and organizational memory. According to this author, the constructs refer to the process by which knowledge is obtained (knowledge acquisition), information from different sources is shared and thereby leads to new information or understanding (information distribution), distributed information is given one or more commonly understood interpretations (Information interpretation) and knowledge is stored for future use (organizational memory). Kools and Stoll (2016) advocates of the metaphoric perspective have identified seven characteristics which a LO must exhibit: developing and sharing a vision centred on the learning of all students; creating and supporting continuous learning opportunities for all staff; promoting team learning and collaboration among staff; establishing a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration; establishing embedded systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning; learning with and from the external environment and larger learning system; and modeling and growing learning leadership (p. 3) Since it is the model of OL often adapted to study schools by many researchers (e.g., Qin & Li 2018; Collinson et al., 2006;Panagiotopoulos et al., 2018;Park, 2006;Senge et al., 2012;Torokoff & Mets, 2008), this paper takes a position of the blended perspective where OL is understood as change in both thinking and action. Moreover, this perspective is chosen because good teaching requires teachers a fundamental shift in both thinking and action (Senge et al., 2012).

School as learning organization
Any entity which is established to accomplish predefined goals, have group of individuals who act for collectivity, and have clear boundaries from other organizations can be called organization (Argyris & Schon, 1978) so does schools (Park, 2006;Senge et al., 2012). With regard to learning, there is a speculation which assumes that all organizations have the ability to transform into a LO (Can, 2010;Knapp, 2008;Senge et al., 2012). Consequently, it has now become a necessity to rethink any organization including schools as a LO (Kools & Stoll, 2016) so as to take a competitive advantage over others. Thus, OL in school setting is the change among school-level actors on how they think and do in attaining their mandated mission 1 (Hora & Hunter, 2013). Therefore, alike in other organizations, OL in school setting can operate at individual, team and school level. Individual learning is thought to be the building block to both team and school-level learning (Fauske et al., 2005). Thus, learning by each teacher is the foundation for the learning of a school at team and organizational level. In line with this, Beauregard et al. (2015:719) argued that the process of OL "does not occur without strong legitimacy basis provided by individual learning agents; [it] is produced and reproduced by individual learning agent." But, learning by the individual teacher does not necessarily mean learning by the school; because, schools may not learn a knowledge which every teacher acquires (Senge et al., 2012).
The second learning entity is team, which is the most powerful agency for improving OL (Law & Chuah, 2015;Lewis et al., 2016). Teaming up creates collaborative culture and collective responsibility within professional learning community. Its effectiveness over individual learning is due to the collective intelligence of a team which exceeds the sum total of intelligence of its members (Law & Chuah, 2015). However, OL does not happen in mere gathering of individuals into groups (Argyris & Schon, 1978); rather empowering members is a necessity for learning to happen within the group (Law & Chuah, 2015). In the school context; teacher subject groups, staff development teams, site teams, peer networks, and team teaching can function as basis of team learning (Kools & Stoll, 2016). In schools where team learning is functional "teachers engage in structured processes that include joint lesson planning and in observing and commenting on colleagues' classes" (Collinson et al., 2006, p. 41). However, team activity is not equivalent to team learning; instead, the latter is a principled practice designed to bring collective learning of minds acting together (Senge, 1990in Kools & Stoll, 2016. With respect to school-wide learning; Pedler et al., 1989) noted that OL does not occur through mere training of individuals but it takes place as a result of learning at the organization level. In the same vein, Beauregard et al. (2015) indicated that organizations learn through the medium of their subunits and these units are individuals and teams that function in the multilevel system. By implication, schools also learn through the multilevel system that operates in networks of individuals and team of teachers sharing common goals. Thus, teachers and school leaders as individual units and/or team of teachers/leaders are agents for school level learning, but it is obvious that "individual members can come and go in an organization, but the organization can preserve knowledge, behaviors, norms, and values over time" (Collinson et al., 2006, p. 109).
However, in creating an LO, a multitude of variables can prohibit or facilitate it. Consequently, the quality of leadership, organizational culture, teacher behavior, and reform approach employed by the government are typical contextual variables with which success or failure of both building learning schools and implementing instructional reforms is connected (Hallinger & Lee, 2013;Schlechty, 2009;Schleicher, 2016).

Instructional reform
Educational reforms are common at system, school and/or classroom levels (Fullan, 2015). Reforms which aspire to bring improvement in student learning are often named instructional. Teachers are now indisputably considered as the most important agents of instructional reform implementation (Yun, 2007). This is because they have multiple roles as curriculum developer, action researcher, team leader and staff development facilitator (Campbell et al., 2003as cited in Yun, 2007. Similarly, Kools and Stoll (2016) argued that any reform in education will take hold in the classroom only if it successfully alters the behaviors and beliefs of teachers. The rationale for this claim is noted in World Bank (2018:16) report as: "System-level commitment to learning without school-level innovation is unlikely to amount to more than aspirational rhetoric." In well-developed nations and especially in Europe and the USA, uncountable reforms have been tried in teaching and learning per se. Some of these reforms are subject specific such as reforms in teaching science and mathematics (Cooper, 2013) and some others are linked to the application of instructional technology or pedagogical interventions and use of instructional materials. Similarly; Hallinger and Lee (2013) have discussed instructional reforms tried so far in Thailand: student centered learning, cooperative learning, brain-based learning, localized curriculum content, and use of technology. Such reforms have been common in Africa since the 1990s (Altinyelken, 2010;Chisholm & Leyendecker, 2008;Eger, 2016). According to Schlechty (2009:32), all these reforms aspire to improve instruction and the central idea behind these reforms is making immediate shift from heavy reliance on lectures to discovery learning and inquiries. Kools and Stoll (2016) attributed the necessity of instructional reforms to the inherent weaknesses entrenched in traditional models of schooling where: "the single teacher, the classroom segmented from other classrooms each with their own teacher, and traditional approaches to teaching and classroom organization-are inadequate for delivering these 21 st century learning agendas." (p. 12). Schools as learning organization (SLO) should therefore engage in a process of learning new roles that such quest for improvement brings. This paper aims to interrogate how such learning roles are being tried out in a school context in Ethiopia.

Overview of instructional reform in Ethiopia
Educational reforms in Ethiopia usually come following a regime change; as a result, in 1994 a new education and training policy (ETP) has been endorsed three years after the overthrow of the military regime from power. The policy and its directives contain structural, curricular, and pedagogical reforms. With regard to curriculum and pedagogical reforms, the policy gave more emphasis to producing citizens who are problem solvers, and critical and creative thinkers (MoE, 1994).
To realize this goal, Education Sector Development Programs (ESDPs) prioritized curricular reforms which promote change in teachers' classroom practices. In light of this, ESDP-II (MoE, 2003) called for a change in teaching methods and system of assessment so as to create citizens envisioned in the policy. A quality improvement package which, among others, aimed to install these refroms has been introduced into the country's education system (MOE, 2008). ESDP-IV (MoE, 2010) also included similar elements under curriculum reform which aspired to improve teachers' instructional practice at the classroom level. Moreover, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) program (MoE, 2009) has been introduced to improve the quality of instruction.
However, the reforms in pedagogy were solidified after the introduction of the "Teacher Education System Overhaul" [TESO] (MoE, 2003). Since then, ideas such as teacher as reflective practitioner, teacher as action researcher, cooperative learning, and continuous assessment that aimed to improve instruction become part of teacher training/development program. Moreover, TESO reform ideas were translated into strategies and initiatives; and the initiatives like active learning (AL), continuous assessment (CA), and action research (ACR) are all together labeled in this paper post-1994 instructional reforms. Failure stories, however, exceed success stories as reported by government reports, funding agencies, and individual researchers.

Statement of the problem
Recent findings reveal that instructional reforms introduced so far in Ethiopian primary schools seldom improved schools' and students' achievements. One of these findings could come from the scores obtained by primary school students in learning assessments (MOE, 2013); which fall very far behind the expectation of the reform efforts. The Early Grade Reading Achievement, EGRA scores (RTI, 2014(RTI, &, 2010, for instance, show that children in first cycle primary schools were not developing the basic language skills required to learn effectively in later years, in which only 5% were able to perform to the standard in reading fluency (2010) and more than half were nonreaders 2 (2014). Similarly, obtained scores from Early Grade Mathematics Achievement, EGMA (Asfaw, 2015) and successive National Learning Assessments (NLA) according to the analysis of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 2019) were behind the pass mark score set in the education and training policy (TGE, 1994), which is 50%. With regard to the process, local studies conducted on the status of implementing post-1994 instructional reforms in primary schools show that the reforms seldom transformed teachers' classroom practices (Hindeya & Mulu, 2013;Melese et al., 2009;Mulu, 2004;Serbessa, 2006;Tuji, 2006). This has made instruction linger in its pre-1994 way of doing. Put together, failure of post-1994 instructional reforms and the quality disaster seem beyond speculation.
There are ample findings from OL researches which claim that any organization is only as good as its learning ability (Law & Chuah, 2015;Wellman, 2009). That is, the more an organization is a LO, the higher will it be competitive and sustaining in the dynamic global competition. Schools are not exceptions. One can infer that the effectiveness of school reforms in general and instructional reforms in particular seem highly dependent on the potency of the school to make OL an aspect of its culture. However, how the case school is built into a LO and how contextual factors facilitate/inhibit learning of instructional reforms by the school require investigation. Thus, this study was planned to examine the case school's learning of instructional reforms via the lens of OLT. In so doing, it tried to find answers to the following questions: (1) How is knowledge acquired, distributed, interpreted and stored for future use at the school?
(2) How prevalent are the characteristics of a learning organization in the school?
(3) What is the agency and content of learning in the case school?
(4) How does this "learning process" influences instructional reforms at the school?
(5) What conditions stimulate or inhibit organizational learning in the school?

Methods and materials
The objective of the study is to examine school level learning of instructional reforms using the lens of OLT in a case primary school. In so doing, a qualitative research method with case study design was employed. This is because of the fact that the case study is very adaptable to study issues in education (Stake, 1995), and especially important for understanding pedagogic issues (Mills et al., 2010).
Selection of a case is considered critical in case study research (Yin, 2018;Mills et al., 2010). The relevance of the case (s) for the research objective is the most important criterion for selection. Hence, the case school, which is located in Bure Town (410 km north-west of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia), is purposively selected out of 12 public primary schools hosted in the town's administration. The school was selected for two reasons; first, out of the twelve primary schools which have been functioning in the town, it has been awarded the title of best performing schools in the 2018 annual performance evaluation. Hence, we are interested to study how OL is built in a 'best school' based on the principle of appreciative inquiry. 3 Second, the case school is one of the oldest schools which is functioning for over 40 years. Consequently, it has been experienced many of the post-1994 instructional reforms from the very beginning. The data sources were head of the Woreda Education Office (WEO), principal of the school, and three veteran teachers working in the school (working for more than 15 years). Data were collected using interview. Moreover, government and school documents which are relevant to the study were reviewed.
The extent to which OL constructs were exercised in the school, the degree to which the characteristics of a learning school exist, the contents and agency of learning, the way how OL influences instructional practice vis-à-vis the reforms, and the variables in the context which support or inhibit the SLO while learning these instructional reforms were the focal contents of the data gathering instruments.
Procedurally, the interview guides were developed based on review of relevant literature and observation of existing experiences. One of the researchers facilitated the interviews and took detailed field notes. The data so collected were analyzed thematically. Themes drawn from the basic research questions of the study and those emerged through reading and re-reading of the field notes were used as pillars for the data analysis.

Results
This section is devoted to presentation of the results of the study based on five themes drawn from the basic research questions.

Knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and storage
Knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and storage constitute important constructs of OL (Huber, 1991). The data sources for the present study were asked how well the school engaged in these processes. Alongside interviews, school documents were reviewed to complement the data obtained.
To start with knowledge acquisition; experience sharing with cluster schools, 4 peer/expert supervision, and to some extent mentoring were the strategies through which teachers in the school acquire knowledge which likely improve their classroom practice. Concerning experience sharing, the school did periodic visits to other schools; the school principal noted "in 2018, the school has made experience sharing with two schools in the cluster." Similarly, both the principal and head of the WEO reported periodic professional visits by cluster supervisors and woreda education experts. Supervision and mentoring were other strategies employed to acquire knowledge. According to the principal "in-school supervision" and "mentoring activities of senior teachers to their mentees, especially in language and the sciences streams" were used to acquire knowledge about teaching and learning in light of post-1994 instructional reforms. This opinion was supported by the interviewed teachers; they confirmed that feedbacks given in post-supervision sessions have been useful to improve their classroom practice. But according to the principal and head of WEO, the effort of teachers in further analyzing and sharing the feedbacks, and in transforming it into instructional knowledge was limited.
Even though not deep rooted, learning from self-experience and learning from others' experiences emerge as the prevailing strategies of knowledge acquisition in the case school. However, the process rarely suits to real organizational experiments for it lacks rigor on cause-effect relationship between the school's actions and outcomes. Moreover, evidence of acquiring knowledge using other strategies 5 (see, Huber, 1991) seems limited. In particular, one of the teacher participants strongly argued that inherited knowledge is almost negligible due to staff turnover and poor documentation. She said: Teachers often transfer from school to school; but there is no mechanism in the school designed to tap their knowledge. In the school, I have been working since the last nine years; if I transfer to another school, there is no strategy set by the school through which I can share this knowledge and this is true for school principals and supervisors.
Concerning knowledge distribution; participant teachers and the school principal confirmed that there were networks of teacher groupings organized in the form of committees, unions (e.g., language teachers' union, science teachers' union, etc.) and learning teams (e.g., the CPD committee, the "one to five organization" which seem phased out now, etc.). Nevertheless, the findings show knowledge that helps for improving instruction is rarely derived out of this networking as the school as well as teachers in the school focus on readymade focus areas cascaded in the form of periodic checklists/ templates. This makes the instructional knowledge shared among teachers almost similar. Thus, various teacher team-ups did not seem effectively networked, and this has limited both knowledge creation via interpretation and knowledge sharing between and within teacher groupings.
Regarding the process through which teachers provide meaning to the already distributed information, similar interpretation seems opted for than variation; the school principal asserted, "in the instructional issues on which our teachers/team of teachers discuss, we encourage them to rich on similar understanding and way of doing classroom routines" The WEO, also asserted that similar understanding is sought from all teachers and that was checked through periodic supervision from WEO and cluster supervisor. This implies, irrespective of variation in the subject they teach, experience they have, and grade level they teach; teachers were required to reach on common interpretation. One of the possible reasons for this might be the strong tradition of prescribing curricula and means of implementing it, which limits teachers to try different ways of practicing professional duties.
With respect to the fourth construct which is knowledge storage; the head of the WEO, replied knowledge that is already learnt in the school is stored in the form of minutes, piles, and sometimes in soft copies. However, the school principal was unable to locate most of the so called "knowledge" in the storage sites. Here, the question was rephrased and asked to him "the school has about 40 years since its establishment 6 and in those years, it might have acquired a dearth of information from which teachers could learn many things; then where do you think this information is stored?" Then, he smiles and replies "let alone information of the last forty years, I could not find the same in the last ten years; it has gone with teachers and principals who transferred to other schools or who retired." From a knowledge management perspective, however, what he called it knowledge is not really knowledge as it remains largely unused and effectively lost. Knowledge management chain, according to knowledge management theory, has four hierarchies namely data, information, knowledge, and wisdom (Bellinger et al., 2004). While information is data that has been given meaning via understanding relations, knowledge is transformed information about which individuals have understood patterns of that relationship (Wang, 2007). Thus, it sounds that what is stored in the storage sites of the school seldom qualify for the meaning of neither information nor knowledge; rather, it seems unprocessed data which moved with teachers and/or school principals who transferred to other schools.
Teachers have the same view; one of the participants asserted that archives, databases and filing systems where knowledge is documented for reuse in improving instructional practice are limited. Then a probing question was asked! "If you have questions on how to do your teaching, from where/ whom do you get that question answered?" she asserted that she asks the department head. This shows knowledge obtained from experience sharing in and out of school is tacit knowledge stored in the minds of few individuals. Kools and Stoll (2016) based on synthesis of literature identified seven basic characteristics of a learning school: developing and sharing a vision centered on the learning of all students; creating and supporting continuous learning opportunities for all staff; promoting team learning and collaboration among all staff; establishing a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration; embedding systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge and learning; learning with and from the external environment and larger learning, and modeling and growing learning leadership. The major findings from interview and document review are summarized as follows under each characteristic.

Characteristics of schools as learning organization
With regard to developing and sharing a vision; all the participants replied that the school has a vision which is incorporated in various school documents (e.g., in the plans of teachers' one to five grouping, students' one to five grouping, school's strategic plan, etc.) and in the school compound too. However, the school principal and teachers argue that it is nominal and not effectively communicated to stakeholders. Moreover, both the school principal and participant teachers were unable to remember this vision. This shows knowledge acquisition, distribution, interpretation and storage that OL constitutes were rarely practiced in the school.
Concerning creating and supporting continuous learning, though intermittent and replica of instructional methods imposed from MoE, all the participants posited that teachers in the school had various opportunities for learning. One of these opportunities was the periodic training from a nearby College of Teacher Education, Woreda education experts, and from trained and/or experienced teachers in the school. The usual CPD that provides teachers apparent freedom on topic selection was also another opportunity noted by participants for continuous learning.
In relation to promoting team learning and collaboration, the checklists used in the school and interview data confirmed the availability of different teacher teams such as science teachers' union, mathematics teachers' union, and language teachers' union. All of these are in addition to the usual teachers' one to five grouping, departmentalization and development armies. Interviewees, however, were not happy about the contribution of these team learning contents in bringing shifts in teachers' classroom practices along the direction which post-1994 reforms aspired. One of the teachers replied "the team activities I have engaged in with other teachers do have more paper value than truly improving my classroom practice." The school principal and head of the WEO had also the same view; they considered the teams as mean of communicating the various checklists imposed from above.
With respect to establishing a culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration; head of the WEO and the reviewed school documents (such as action research reports, teachers' daily lesson plans, and checklists developed by the school and WEO) show that except minimal efforts from the school in encouraging teachers to do action research 7 and to support instruction through technology; the rooms for inquiry, innovation, and exploration seem closed due to an organizational rigidity that gives no opportunity for school-based reforms. The case in point which the principal raised and head of the WEO has shared was implementation of continuous assessment (CA). As the principal stated, he planned to reform the school's summative continuous assessment (SCA) practice, and requested the WEO for approval. Surprisingly, the WEO, in turn, requested the Zone Education Department (ZED) and then the Regional Education Bureau (REB). The principal was asked "what if teachers requested you to do CA differently?" He replied, "I refer to the WEO." Analysis of teachers' lesson plan also support absence of focus for reform elements in the instructional process.
With regard to embedding systems for collecting and exchanging knowledge, teachers and the school principal confirmed that the school has well established structures that extend from the smallest one to five group to developmental army. However, collecting and exchange of knowledge within and between the sub-structures were reported to be too bureaucratic that didn't prioritize knowledge-based and meaningful professional engagement but to adhere to the school's demands.
Concerning learning with and from the external environment, participant teachers and the school principal reported that except for periodic visit to cluster schools the school is a closed system which rarely learn from the external environment. For instance, no collaboration was made or partnership agreements were signed with anyone else including parents in instructional improvement per se.
The last characteristic, which is modeling and growing learning leadership, was also found limited since the school principal was busy in preparing checklists for periodic teacher appraisal, in writing project proposals for funding agencies and in reporting to the educational authorities above him. This indicates that compared to administrative functions, instructional functions that are vital to improve teaching and learning seem overlooked by the school principal.

Forms and contents of learning in the school
OL is undertaken by a multiple of agencies and the contents too are very much diversified depending on the vision and mission of the organization.
With respect to the contents, AL, CA and ACR were common focus areas of learning noted by all the participants. Besides, they mentioned subject specific contents such as language, civic and ethical education, and science kit. Topical issues like substance abuse and HIV/AIDS were additional focus areas in which teachers have engaged in periodic school-wide learning. Regarding the agency of learning, these contents especially AL and CA seem focused mainly in team learning. This is because a multiple of team learning groups such as one to five, subjectspecific unions, development armies, supervision teams etc. were established in the school. CPD, in which AL, CA and ACR are priorities; though part of a school wide initiative, was conducted by teacher teams. There were also occasions when topical issues and common contents were discussed at school-wide sessions but only rarely. Nevertheless, participant teachers and the principal made clear that learning at individual teacher level might be either tacit or did not exist at all. The principal and head of the WEO supported their claim by citing the under achievement of teachers in licensing test administered in 2017. This implies the contents of learning were pedagogical issues already prescribed by MoE through series of strategic documents that contains multiple of programs and initiatives. Although the school appears adhering to team learning as agency of school-wide learning, the contents did not win the commitments of team members as participant teachers clearly show their boredom with those contents.

Teachers' learning and its influences on instructional reform
Teachers in the school acquire knowledge on statutory instructional reforms from experience sharing within the school and from other schools using peer supervision and experience sharing respectively, although not adequate. It also obtained trainings from sources within and out of the school. In addition, there were teacher groupings through which they could acquire knowledge relevant to their classroom practice. 8 Review of a sample of checklists, however, show that instructional reforms appear rarely focused. For instance, of the ten checklist criteria sent from WEO, none focused on instructional reforms related to CA, AL or ACR. Out of the fourteen criteria the school dispatched to teachers, only one required teachers to support instruction with technology and to do action research.
More importantly, analysis of a teacher's daily lesson plans reveals limited evidence of incorporating post-1994 instructional reforms. Instead, it follows the "traditional" lesson planning in which daily lessons for a given week appears on a single sheet of A4 size paper following traditional didactic elements. A specimen from the month of April is portrayed below.
Moreover, analysis of teachers' yearly one to five plan shows issues of instructional reforms except score analyses were overlooked; out of fourteen activities planned for the year, no activity has specifically dealt with elements of instruction. It focuses on other issues such as increasing students' engagement in one to five and development army meetings, minimizing the number of dropouts, decreasing the number of underachievers via tutorials, organizing meetings with parents and similar other issues. Thus, it is possible to conclude that the limited knowledge obtained in these approaches of knowledge acquisition were rarely taken to the classroom.
Review of National school standard document (MoE, 2014) has, however, incorporated process elements that demand teachers to practice instructional reforms but within the scope of already identified reform elements. This document is a guideline on how to label schools in ranks of 1 to 4 indicating 1 below standard and 4 highly standardized. The document has 26 standards of which 14 standards deal about process and counts 35% from the total 100% evaluation. These 14 standards have in sum 60 indicators carrying varying weights. Of these, it seems that the criteria that requires teachers to practice post-1994 instructional reforms accounts less than 3% of the total 100%. Similarly, school leaders were given some amount of space to facilitate teachers' instructional reforms and monitor its implementation. Nevertheless, it appears difficult for teachers to commit themselves for a weight which is less than 3%, since 97% of the criteria did not require them to practice these reforms.

The context: facilitating and prohibiting variables
OL is influenced by conditions which prevail in and outside of the school environment. According to the school principal; teachers, the reformists, and school leaders are in the top of these conditions. With regard to teachers, they lacked the subject matter and pedagogic competence to implement government reforms. There is also reluctance from the side of teachers in implementing the reforms; the principal mentioned teacher dissatisfaction for lacking the commitment. In his own words "teachers are professionally reluctant to learn and practice the instructional reforms because of the fact that they are dissatisfied with the incentives government provides." The school principal and head of the WEO asserted that they lacked instructional leadership skills. Though the school principal was trained to identify gaps and fill teachers' skills and knowledge gaps, the head uncovered, he was overburdened by administrative functions.
Second, head of the WEO affirmed schools were busy in hosting heap of reforms such as BPR, BSC, Kaizen, one to five and its families, school improvement, CA, AL ACR, performance appraisal and many more. These reforms, he noted, are very instant that nobody seems accountable to the failures or successes. Some of these reforms, the school principal, head of the WEO, and participant teachers claimed, are contradictory: AL seems contradictory with content coverage, and CA with regional examination. Regarding AL and CA, one of the teachers responded: We are expected to deliver teaching using AL methods and this demands us to be flexible in content coverage. Because, engaging students in the teaching learning process needs more time than the traditional lecture method. Contradictorily; during classroom supervision, the principal, cluster supervisor, and experts from WEO strictly check the alignment of the daily lesson plan with the annual lesson plan. So does CA with what is focused in regional examination.
Moreover, resources which are critical to effectively implement post-1994 instructional reforms were lacking. Imposed reforms, lack of continuous professional training and shortage of inspired teachers were also major challenges of OL and instructional reform implementation which participants noted. Teachers' and principals' turnover and absence of functional knowledge/skill sharing strategy was another challenge to school-level learning.
With respect to enablers of OL, participants have mentioned limited opportunities. Teachers, for instance, observed that staff socialization was high which implicitly mean an enabling school context for team learning. They also added that the school is full of veteran teachers who have decades of experience in teaching. Though they became dissatisfied by the amount and rapidity of top-down reforms; both the WEO head and the school principal considered them as guiding elements for instructional improvement.
Thus, the school context appears playing a dual but opposite role for OL. While the entrenched staff socialization and the staffing of the school by veteran teachers helped in creating enabling context; teachers' reluctance and lack of subject matter and pedagogic competence, absence of instructional leadership, and deep-rooted culture of prescription from the government played the counter offensive. In addition, acute shortage of resources limited the culture of OL and learning of instructional reforms in the school.

Discussion
The findings uncovered some constructs of OL that prevailed in the school. To mention these, the school has tried to acquire knowledge using some but limited strategies known in OL. For instance, it shared experiences within staff members and cluster schools around. Moreover, periodic inschool supervision and to some extent mentoring seem sources of knowledge acquisition in the case school. Nevertheless, it lacked Huber's (1991) basic sources of knowledge acquisition that are common in a LO; namely, inherited knowledge, knowledge from newly employed staff members, knowledge from experimentation and knowledge that comes from scanning the bigger environment. Even, the prevailing knowledge acquisition constructs lacked consistency and continuity as the school was implementing them intermittently probably to satisfy the requirements by the WEO in time of external supervision.
With respect to distribution, the findings showed that the school established multiple teacher teams working in professional groupings, committees and subject-specific groupings. Such squad of groupings facilitate information distribution in a LO (Beauregard et al., 2015;Smith & Lyles, 2011;Wellman, 2009). Moreover, teachers in the school periodically practice inbuilt supervision which is one possible outlet to distribute the acquired knowledge. However, the commitment of teams, their freedom to interpret information on teaching learning, and the amount of knowledge created through the process seem too limited.
Knowledge acquisition is bounded within government reforms; especially AL, CA and ACR. Hence, experience sharing within and out of the school compound focuses on how best other teachers or schools implemented these reforms. Thus, teachers are required to converge to similar understanding in reforms per se. Weak evidence obtained regarding the school's culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration could be best epitome for this syndrome. Huber (1991) and Daft and Weick (1984) noted divergent interpretation of acquired knowledge promotes creation of new organizational knowledge due to unlearning or discarding of obsolete knowledge. From this point of view, the school worked to maintain knowledge staff acquires (if it so) and the powerful and legitimate knowledge seem knowledge from the government. Review of MoE's reform documents dispatched in post-1994 Ethiopia shows that the government determines not only the why (purpose) and what (content) of the reforms but also the how (implementation with yardstick) which is the unique feature of fidelity curriculum (Jeasik, 1998). This may cripple creativity and multiplication of organizational knowledge since the intent of learning is to disorganize and increase variety; but not to organize and reduce variety (Watkins & Marsick, 1996; as cited in Kools & Stoll, 2016).
Storing the knowledge created was found to be very limited. The study revealed that data which could have been potentially transformed into other knowledge management hierarchies is stored in the form of minutes and piles; but these data are discarded once teachers have got a tick in the monthly checklist. That means, the data produced from supervision reports, mentoring, experience sharing, and teachers' CPD portfolios were not used to enhance further learning but to satisfy the reporting requirements of the school and education authorities in the hierarchy. By the time of the interview with the principal, an attempt was made to check if the last ten years' minutes were available. However, he was only able to locate scrambled minutes of the 2018 academic year. The information which is saved from discarding was also rarely shared among teachers to improve instruction since individuals and team of teachers lacked the freedom for interpreting the information and transforming it into meaningful knowledge. This implies the data produced from the aforementioned sources were at best stored in the hands of individuals, which is the most volatile storage site (Wellman, 2009;Nelson & Winter, 1982in Huber, 1991Gioia & Poole, 1984) The common and relatively permanent storage sites in LOs such as computers (Argyris & Schon, 1978) were lacking in the school or not properly handled. That means future endeavors for creating a learning school is hampered due to inadequate storage and application of knowledge accumulated over generations.
The study also revealed the school has few of the characteristics of a learning school; it has established varieties of teams which are building blocks for creating a LO (Senge et al., 2012). Moreover; using these teams, it worked to promote collaboration among teams/individual teachers; and, though intermittent, it tried to create learning opportunities for teachers. To this end, team seems the most visible agency of learning followed by school-wide learning. But, the teams didn't seem functioning in the true sense of a learning team; whereas, the means and magnitude of individual teacher learning looks fuzzy. With respect to the vision, it seems that staff failed to share and commit itself for its accomplishment for no one was able to remember the vision even partially. The learning opportunities created for teachers also seem partially adequate. However, the rest of the characteristics especially culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration and a learning leadership seem to be absent in the school while the remaining characteristics were observed only partially. The culture of inquiry, innovation and exploration was found insignificant, partly because of limited freedom to try self-initiated reforms (Zachry & Schneider, 2008).
The study also shows contents of government-initiated instructional reforms (AL, CA and to some degree ACR) were the focuses of team and school wide learning. CPD is one method of school-wide learning in which teachers work on prioritized interests. By default, government instructional reforms received utmost priority. Teachers' and students' one to five groupings were found the routines in which both teachers and students aspire to accomplish goals. The school's score analysis tradition is also one step ahead in creating a learning school which is the bedrock for instructional reform (Zachry and Schneider (2008)). Scrutinizing these elements; in the school studied, one can partly find the characteristics and constructs unique to a LO suggested by different OL scholars (e.g., Huber, 1991;Kools & Stoll, 2016;Schlechty, 2009;Wellman, 2009). However; from analysis of teachers' daily lesson plans and other documents, it appears that exposure to reform contents in team and school-wide learning did not bring any influence in reforming instruction. It simply contains the traditional didactic elements which, according to Kools and Stoll (2016, p. 12), are criticized as not "adequate for delivering the 21 st century learning agendas." Storing already acquired knowledge and using that knowledge to initiate further reforms were found the weakest in the school and this limited the utility of acquired knowledge for reporting purpose only. Moreover, neither the shares given in the school standard document (MoE, 2014) nor the findings from the school-based score analysis helped them to introduce selfinitiated instructional reforms. The saying "the team activities I have engaged with other teachers do have more paper value than truly improving my classroom practice" conveys the full message of the failure of school level learning in practicing instructional reforms. This inhibits the attainment of the goal of instructional reforms introduced by the government which, according to Gallagher (2000), is to improve the learning of all students. Of course, this is not surprising as similar studies conducted on school setting reported the failure of schools to become LOs (Can, 2010;Coppieters, 2005;Schlechty, 2009;Senge et al., 2012).
The concept of LO works within a context (Law & Chuah, 2015) and schools are no exception. Thus, in this study, the enablers and inhibitors were found related to the school leadership, teachers, and the reform approach. With respect to leadership, the principal engaged more in managerial issues and less on instruction; but, research esttablishes that leadership is a prerequisite for creating a learning school (Collinson et al., 2006;Hallinger & Lee, 2013;Zachry & Schneider, 2008;Leithwood, Leonard, & Sharratt, 1998). For instance; reforms in Thailand failed due to school leaders' inability of being instructional leaders (Hallinger & Lee, 2013).
Teachers are probably the most influential elements who determine OL and instructional reform (Collinson et al., 2006;Schlechty, 2009). In this study, though they engaged in various groups, it appears that they lacked the prerequisite knowledge and skill which continuous learning and reform implementation require. Nevertheless, these competencies are critical for developing schools into a LO (Bowen et al., 2007).
The other factor in the context is the reform itself. The study shows the reforms were impositions from MoE (Jimma & Tarekegn, 2016;Tefera, 1996). Though not closed, the space provided for school-level reforms seems limited. That is, MoE appears to determine not only the why and what of the curriculum but also the how of teaching and assessment. By so doing, it seems that the government is teaching in the classroom. This might be associated with the reform tradition which dominated the history of modern education in the country. Policy change in education usually undertaken following regime change (Negash, 1996). And hence, the reforms which follow policy changes were meant to indoctrinate a regime's ideology.
The supremacy of reformers over the voiceless weakens motivation of the latter in creating a learning school so do the inspiration for initiating instructional reforms (Schleicher, 2016;Zachry & Schneider, 2008). Scholars suggested either a fair balance between top-down and bottom-up reform approach (Fullan, 2007;Jimma & Tarekegn, 2016;Schleicher, 2016) or a bottom-up reform approach (Zachry & Schneider, 2008) in place of the traditional top-down reform approach. Moreover, the reforms were not only swift but also bounteous which some of them seem hard to reconcile with each other and not relevant to teachers' works. Surprisingly, research affirmed that OL assists teachers' reform implementation when reform content is related to teachers' daily work (Teare et al., 2002as cited in Law & Chuah, 2015 and when reform becomes less demanding (Schlechty, 2009).
In addition, the output measures emphasized in the school standard document (MoE, 2014) such as completion, attrition and repetition rate, gender parity index, and a pass mark score in classroom assessment are weak requirements to make the reforms effective. Research shows reforms are more promising in output-driven schools (Bowen et al., 2007), which are closely tied to outputs related to teaching and learning than in process (activities) or input driven ones.

Conclusions
From the foregoing data presentation and discussion, it seems sensible to draw the following conclusions Of the constructs LOs should display, the school attempted only one, that is to acquire knowledge using experience sharing distribute via multiple teacher groupings. Moreover, the school displayed few of the characteristics of a learning school. Thus, using the various teacher groupings, it seems that the school has a potential to grow into a LO; though it lacked other sources of knowledge acquisition suggested in OLT literature. Most importantly, the school used less strategies such as learning from inherited knowledge, vicarious learning and grafting. In addition, freedom of interpretation and culture of storing knowledge for further use were lacking. The school also lacked a culture of innovation, exploration, experimentation and inquiry, all of which elements are important characteristics of a learning school.
OLT affirms that OL takes place via multiple agencies; individual, team and school wide. In the school, only team learning emerged as an active agent of learning followed by school wide learning. However, individual learning seems tacit. Any element of instructional reform is implemented at classroom level. Thus, unless teachers individually grow into agents of learning, OL may not improve classroom practice. In addition, periodic exposure to OL could at most support reporting but not instruction for OL is rarely sporadic. In addition, the influence of team learning and school-wide learning in reforming instruction seems insignificant as it is learnt from teachers' plans; rather, it resulted in a heap of reports that would be discarded after periodic performance appraisal. Thus, it is sound to conclude that the subtle attempts in OL were not intended toward attaining the school's vision; but to get fit to the requirements of authorities in and outside of the school.
In the last two decades, the MoE has introduced several reforms that prescribe for teachers and schools on how to teach students. This makes all the contents of school learning to focus on these imposed reform ideas at the expense of school-initiated reforms. Hence, it seems that self-initiated instructional reforms which are the very purpose of OL have been overlooked both in policy and practice while reforms imposed by MoE were the most focused contents of learning in all learning endeavors. One can say this situation gives the government unconditional license to avail itself in the classroom while in fact it is not legally mandated.
The school's subtle effort of being a learning school was severely challenged by an overdose of imposed reforms, lack of instructional leadership skills, and acute shortage of resources. Teachers' resistance resulted in lack of commitment to practice the reforms. Thus, it can be concluded that the school context of demands for reform supposedly to enhance learning has been inhibiting rather than enabling of such learning.

Implications
The school has already established the structural arrangements which are needed in creating a learning school; the various teacher team-ups and school clustering are among these arrangements. Experience sharing from within and out of the school compound on post-1994 instructional reforms also show the roots of creating a learning school is already germinating. However, transforming both these structures and engagements within them into functional mechanisms for change needs serious attention. Introducing school-level initiatives that help individual teachers to publicly share and apply tacit knowledge in team discussions may facilitate learning. Lesson study, learning communities or any bespoke learning initiatives created by the school could be among these strategies.
Learning organizations rarely develop without organizations having a strong sense of inquiry for knowledge; in the school, there are some signs this. Nevertheless, storing and interpreting the knowledge seem hindered by poor habits whereby the knowledge is achieved and rarely if ever referred to again. This needs urgent rethinking of both the top-down tradition of introducing instructional reforms and the knowledge management strategy used by the school.
In addition, transforming classroom practice from tradition to instruction prescribed by post-1994 reforms needs coherence among reform elements; the findings show some contradiction between, for instance, AL and content coverage, CA and memory-oriented regional examination and ACR and uniformity in executing the reforms. Acute shortage of resources also hampered the school's effort of learning the reforms. Developing a learning school needs handing these problems for serious by the school leaders and educational authorities in the top hierarchy.
Finally, further researches need to be conducted at the national level to understand how schools as organizations in general could be built into a learning school.

These strategies are inheritance (congenital learning)
(1), grafting on to itself (2), and noticing or searching for information about the organization's environment & performance (3)For further details, please refer to Huber, 1991. 6. The school has been established in 1979; and since 1994, it is functioning as full cycle primary school which hosts children of Grade One through grade Eight. 7. In 2018 academic year, only seven teachers out of 69 conducted action research. 8. Data on classroom practice of the instructional reforms was limited since no classroom observation was conducted in this study.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).