Curriculum development and research
Education at all levels has to adapt to the changing circumstances. The primary function of education is to enable individuals develop their potential in a healthy and sustainable way. The factors which influence this process are continuously in flux. Some educational institutions are progressive and skilfully innovative while some are determinedly conservative and wary, even frightened, of change. Many others lie between these extremes. Keeping an effective balance between preserving the best of the past and embracing the best of the present is a challenging but vital task for all educators. The key issue is identifying ‘the best’ in each of those contexts.
The purpose of education and its content have been the subject of endless controversy, and each generation brings its own anxieties and aspirations to the discussion. Sometimes the vocational aspect is in the ascendancy whereby children need an education that fits them for the occupations so badly needed by the nation, and sometimes the liberal argument reigns supreme whereby children need a broad and balanced education stressing the importance of personal values, attitudes and interests.
Perhaps, though, the never-ending argument is far too polarised, and the real debate should be about how to engage children in a broad range of studies and activities while gradually enlightening them about the range of more advanced studies and vocational opportunities available to them. This is a difficult but not an impossible task. The key is to achieve it without dangerously overloading the curriculum. An overloaded curriculum inevitably means much is presented to the children but little is truly accepted. And the secret is to create a school that knows what it wants to achieve, and why it wants to achieve it, and then create a curriculum serving these aims. Such a school will also want to constantly evaluate its success – and, of course, its aims.
Many societies have seen education as the framework for establishing someone’s social status through the type of school or university a person has attended and/or the sort of qualifications he or she has gained. We live with the legacy of this today, and in some quarters this strong historic link between the education people received and the repute in which they are held has not gone away.
Fortunately there is a fast growing appreciation that the really valuable personal attributes are skills and abilities such as social competence, creativity, initiative, adaptability and a capacity for life-long learning. The old hierarchy of examinations and certificates are all very well, but we should try to measure what we really value rather than only value what we have traditionally measured. First, schools must work hard to identify what they really value, and then ensure it plays the fullest possible part, and demonstrably so, in school life.
All this means that the curriculum of schools, vocational colleges and higher educational institutions need to be continually monitored, evaluated and reviewed through continually running procedures agreed and shared by all concerned. Particular attention should be paid to the needs of both individual children/students as maturing human beings as well as the currently prevailing national/international economic and political pressures.
Ipf’s ultimate aim is to see sustainable development without any dependency on consultants. Although, of course, ipf will provide support for as long as it is needed, ipf will know, and clearly say, when a partnership should come to its natural end.