Let the questions be the curriculum-Socrates
Columnist X. N. Iraki asked educated Kenyans to discuss the curriculum in their public engagements rather than the structural aspects of the ongoing education reforms.
“The big debate on CBE has been about the placement of junior school, teaching methodology and examinations and not content,” Iraki complained in an article entitled Let’s prioritise quality learning this year, in The Standard on January 4, 2006.
“The curriculum content is important as a constitution; it should be put to a referendum,” he observed,
In truth, the Curriculum is the DNA of an education system. The substance of debates on education reform should be about four things. First, the fundamental purpose of school; second, what students are taught; third, teacher education and training, preservice and in-service education and training. The fourth point of discussion should be examinations or assessment, generally, how the work of the schools is to be evaluated.
This is the curriculum. One can easily argue that the business of education reform is ultimately about curriculum.
I don’t agree, however, with Iraki that the curriculum should be subject to a referendum. Some of the most consequential curricula for many countries and civilisations were made by one person or a small group of eminent persons, not mobs. Plato, Moses, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Confucius, Siddhartha Gautama and Zoroaster were great curriculum makers or creators.
Their ideas created education systems that shaped people’s ways of living for centuries.
I nevertheless agree with his thesis that the curriculum has taken a peripheral position in debates on education reform initiatives.
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Education reform has two major dimensions: structural and curriculum.
Structural concerns, things like how schooling is organised. How many years should learners take in primary before they transition to secondary education? Who meets the cost of learning, and by how much at each tier of education? How are teachers recruited and remunerated? Who provides the infrastructure necessary for schooling? Should education be centralised or decentralised? Who controls education? What is the ideal class and school size?
Conversely, the curriculum addresses the core of teaching and learning. What is taught, and what is the calibre of those teaching?
It also addresses such fundamental issues: what instructional strategies will be used in teaching learners how to read? Shall it be phonics or the whole language or a blend of the two? Should we use vernacular as a language of instruction in the initial years of school? When should English (or a foreign language) be introduced if the vernacular or the dominant language is adopted at the lower levels? Should we introduce clutter in its teaching with other academic subjects or nurture basic skills first before we introduce them?
What is the core knowledge and skills taught from Grade 1 to Grade 12? How do we blend intellectual and moral education in the curriculum? At what point do we introduce and discontinue teaching arts and crafts in the curriculum as a tool for the training of the eyes and hands? Should Physical education, the training of psychomotor skills, be a pillar in the curriculum? How do we integrate it into the curriculum and make sure that all schools, without exception, have physical education lessons every week?
At what grade or point should learners be allowed to take optional subjects without compromising on their physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development now and later? At what point do we allow them to choose subjects indicative of their abilities and career projections or preferences for certification purposes?
The curriculum is designed for the normal child. How then do we take care of the gifted child, that child who in any population, is intellectually and academically more advanced than their peers? Education specialists know this kind of child. This child loses his or her talent when they are bound to pace with the normal school curricular programmes. What strategy shall we use to educate this child? Through acceleration, enrichment, and differentiation of the children? Do we adequately prepare teachers to handle such a child?
We lose such children to indiscipline, drugs, disruption of school hours and truancy when we fail to address their needs.
I remember former Principal Secretary for the Implementation of Curriculum Reforms, Prof. Fatuma Chege, raising the question of the gifted child in a workshop in Machakos. The issue was glossed over.
All in all, a curriculum is not an idle matter in education reforms. It makes the difference between a high-value and low-value education. Some systems of education take particular interest in the peculiar needs of gifted children. These children cause trouble when their needs are not addressed.
The question of curriculum takes a central position in policy debates on education reform in national education systems around the world. In fact, education reform is synonymous with curriculum reform.
Ministers of education around the world spend their days and nights thinking about curriculum, its rigour and coherence, across the entire school system. They think and demand policy advice on synergies between the purposes of school, what is taught and how well is taught. They, too, get policy advice on structural aspects of education. But still keep an eye on the curriculum, which is the bone marrow of education.
Take a virtual tour of national education systems around the world. The talk is about the curriculum.
For example, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for example prepares the curriculum it is subject to by a panel of external experts.
“The draft Australian Curriculum for the learning area/subject is released for public consultation and subsequent modification in the light of feedback. A consultation report is available for each learning area/subject here. The writing phase incorporates the process for validation of achievement standards and intensive engagement processes through the trialling of the curriculum in classrooms. The writing phase culminates in the publication of the learning area/subject curriculum on the Australian Curriculum website, according to the ACARA website.
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The Federal Minister of Education himself, Alan Tudge, similarly talked about curriculum in parliament and when he met stakeholders.
“… my focus and the Government’s focus will be on three areas: quality teaching, particularly initial teacher education, curriculum and assessment. In addition, I will be leading a continued focus on indigenous students, particularly those in remote communities, whose level of educational attainment remains catastrophically poor,” Tudge observed, spelling out government ambition to return Australia to the top group of education nations
Successive education reforms in the UK have been about the curriculum. When her Prime Ministers—James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair—tookan interest in education, it was 80 per cent on curriculum and the rest on structure. James Callaghan’s Ruskin Speech in 1976, Margaret Thatcher’s instruction to his Education Minister, Kenneth Baker, and Anthony Blair’s education, education, education speech and Education Secretary Michael Gove’s concerns were largely over curriculum.
Landmark reports on education reforms in the USA have been overly curriculum-focused in outlook.
Educated people should go beyond talking about the placement of learners in senior school. Rather, they should take an interest in the content, the curriculum, and what is being taught because that is the kernel of education.
By Kennedy Buhere
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