The general objective of the study was to assess the existing practices and major factors affecting the design and development of Ethiopian TVET curriculum and explore considerations to be taken to design and develop TVET curricula that befit Ethiopia. The purpose of the study was to explore and understand the meanings TVET practitioners and stakeholders of Ethiopian TVET programme credited to the practices of TVET curriculum design and development in Ethiopia. Hence, the study employed qualitative research approach in phenomenological design and was undertaken within the interpretive paradigm to understand the lived experience of the curriculum designers, developers and implementers in Ethiopia. Accordingly, three regional states of Ethiopia were selected and one government-run TVET college from each regional state, i.e. a total of three TVET Colleges were taken as sample representatives for the study using purposive and convenience sampling methods. The study was delimited to the practices of curriculum design and development of the building construction fields of study. This is because firstly, it is impossible to encompass all available TVET fields of training in the study; secondly, building construction technology sector is one of the those sectors which much focus is given to by the government of Ethiopia and thus is the training fields found in abundance in the country. Two data gathering tools were mainly used to gather information in this study. These were interviews and document review. Therefore, the researcher first reviewed different related literature and strategic documents to understand the background of the problem and to see what has been done in reference to the problem. Accordingly, working and policy documents such as TVET strategies, guidelines, manuals, legislation, curriculum frameworks and guides, as well as Education Sector Development Programmes and other written documents and related literature to TVET curriculum design and development that were available at federal, regional and TVET college levels were reviewed and analysed. Other countries experiences visa-a-vis TVET curriculum design and development were also reviewed and used as sources of information. The interviews were held with curriculum development officials at the Federal TVET Agency and sampled Regional TVET Agencies as well as principals, heads of department and trainers from sampled TVET colleges that were providing training in the fields of building construction works. The interview participants were two TVET curriculum development officials from Federal TVET Agency, three TVET curriculum development officials from three sampled regional TVET Agencies, three TVET college principals from three sampled TVET colleges, three heads of department of building construction work fields from three sampled TVET colleges, and three trainers of building construction work fields from three sampled TVET colleges. Accordingly, it could be investigated from the study that the way outcome based TVET system is perceived and eventually executed and the processes and steps that were followed in order to design and develop TVET curriculum in Ethiopia had impact on present TVET curriculum developed . Besides, the way other countries’ experiences were espoused and adapted led to inappropriate curriculum design and development approach. Moreover, the Ethiopian TVET System following only one Curriculum development approach for designing and developing TVET curriculum for all trades, blue and white collar work-related-vocational education and training resulted in non-beneficial TVET curriculum. It was also noted from the study that the wrong perception of stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities in curriculum development activities led to TVET curriculum development with improper training content selection and unfair training time allotment, which in greatly impact on the TVET curriculum implementation and training delivery. Therefore, the study suggested that the curriculum that addresses individual, societal and employers’ needs should be designed and the labour market demand analysis needs to be undertaken before OS mapping is designed. In doing so, it is recommended that Ethiopia should benchmark itself against best practices of various developed and developing countries which have succeeded in outcome-based TVET system and when TVET system is adopted from other countries, it should be with tangible reasons and justifications. Furthermore, it is recommended that attention should be paid to practical training programmes and a combination of practice and theory time should be provided for all course types. In addition, the environmental situation of the country and the degree of importance of each unit of competence for employment and self-employment need to be considered. / Educational Studies / Ph. D. (Comparative Education)