There is no question that Ethiopia registered an extraordinary achievement in terms of increasing student enrolment, but quality education still remains a challenge and is becoming a bottleneck for the country. The efforts made to improve quality through Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP) are promising. But those changes are worse doing if due attention is not given to another important cross-cutting issues for quality education. One of such issue is creating sense of initiation among teachers or motivating teachers especially those in the disadvantaged areas is an important aspect to sustain the change. This qualitative case study therefore aimed at examining the main challenges faced by primary school teachers in Addis Ababa. To accomplish the goal of the study, two public primary schools were selected in Addis Ababa. A structured and semi structured interview was conducted with teacher participants and also an open and closed ended questionnaire was administered. From the data obtained the major challenge obtained was poor motivation and lack of commitment as result of repellent salary. It was also found that teachers spend fewer hours to classroom teaching in favor of their private work, possibly as a means of balancing their inadequate salaries. The study also revealed the existence of high quit intention from the profession. The low emphasis given by the society, student's misbehavior and the inability of the school administration to effectively address the teachers' demands for supportive and fair leadership were also found to be a challenge. Based on the findings of the study imperative implications for practice and future research were made.