The Purpose of the study was to examine instructional leadership practices and challenges in rnprivate primary schools of Burayu city Administration. The study employed mixed researchrndesign consisting quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyze data. Thernprimary sources of data were principals, department heads, teachers and secondary source of rndata were books, journals and organization reports. From 32 primary private school 10 of rnthem were selected using simple random sampling technique mainly lottery method. rnParticipants in the study were 109 teachers who were selected by simple random sampling rnmethod, and 10 primary school principals,10 department heads and 8 teachers who were rnselected by purposive sampling. The primary data collection instruments were questionnaire, rnFGD and interview. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as rnfrequency, percentage and mean using SPSS version 24.0. Qualitative data were analyzed by rnusing narration method. finding from the data analysis revealed that in private schools the rnassignment of instructional leadership has a gap. Instructional leaders assigned informally by rnthe school owners or appointed by individualsâ€™ interest of investor. Instructional leader was rnmade not on the basis of their qualification and competence. instructional leader was rnaccountable for school manager; their performance was not evaluated by district education.rnpractices of instructional leadership aligned with the standard of MoE in the areas like rndeveloping and managing school community relation, leading and managing learning and rnteaching, and leading and managing school operations and resources. but, the practices rnwhich is leading and facilitating vision of learning and leading and developing individuals rnand team was not aligned with the standard of MoE. Teachers have almost positive rnperception on instructional leadership. in relation to the result of the study there are different rnfactors which hinder instructional leadership such as lack of qualified instructional leader, rnlack of training on instructional leadership, lack in-service training, lack of courage to take rnrisks for the improvement of instruction and lack of organizing the school community for rnleadership work are the factor that hampered of instructional leadership in the private rnschools. It is, therefore concluded that there are gaps in the instructional leadership practice rnof the private primary schools. Finally, based on the findings and conclusions, it was rnrecommended, to equip instructional leaders with necessary knowledge, attitude and skills, rnthe private school owners and city education office may arrange seminars, short and long rnterm training in collaboration with different body to improve the capacity of instructional rnleaders. Moreover, recommendations were also provided school owners to solve selection of rninstructional leaders, city education office and CRC supervisors should give consistent rnsupport, guidance and follow how private school implement government policy and rncurriculum according to the standard