Introduction: Adolescent nutritional problem is common throughout the world. They have to happenstance a sequence of serious nutritional trials not only affecting their growth and development but also their livelihood as adults. Good nutritional knowledge and practices among adolescents is important to avoid health problems that can continue into adulthood.Objective: the aim of this study was to assess level of nutritional knowledge and dietary practices of among primary school adolescents (grade 5-8). This study aimed to provide baseline data on nutritional knowledge and dietary practices of adolescents in the study area.Method cross-sectional study was conducted among 422 school-adolescent aged 10–19 years, from four randomly selected schools using validated self-administered questionnaire. Qualitative variables were compared by using the Chi-square test. Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 software. Scores of less than mean were categorized as poor and score greater than mean were categorized as good nutritional knowledge and dietary practices. Results: Results revealed that 263(62.3 %) of the adolescent students had good nutritional knowledgeand 56.3 % had good nutritional practices. Females were 1.7 times more likely to have nutritional knowledge (AOR: 1.7, 95%CI =1.7 (1.1, 2.75) when compared to adolescent males. Females were 1.5 times more likely to have nutritional practice (AOR: 1.5, 95% CI= 1.0, 2.33) when compared to adolescent males. Grade eight students were 2.6 times more likely (AOR: 2.6, 95% CI= 1.42, 4.87) to have nutritional practice when compared to grade five students. Conclusion: adolescent students in the study area had good nutritional knowledge and dietarypractices. Recommendation: school-based nutrition education and nutrition sensitive interventions should be a part of comprehensive community based programs to reach the students.