Lec # 03 CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN PAKISTAN

By

MUHAMMAD SUFDAR SAHIR

VEHARI SERVICES ACADEMY 167-G VEHARI 03346908699

Curriculum:

According to Ralph Taylor,

Curriculum means all those activities which are provides to students in the school or out of school in order to achieve the predetermined activities.

According to Smith, Stanely and Shore:

Curriculum includes all the activities organized by the school inside or outside the classroom. These activities are sequential in the nature.

According to j. f Kert:

All the learning which is planned or guided by the school is called curriculum.

Characteristics of a Good Curriculum:

·         Totality of activities

·         A mean to an end

·         Total school environment

·         Totality of experience

·         Mirror of educational trends

·         Development of balanced personality

·         Process of living

·         Dynamic

·         Mirror of philosophy of life

·         Achievement of goals

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN CURRICULUM, SYLLABUS, COURSE and EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Curriculum:

According to K.A Leithwood (1981)

Curriculum encompassed educational philosophy, values, objectives, organizational structure, materials, teaching strategies, student experiences and assessment and learning outcomes.

Syllabus:

A list of the content of a course of the work simply means collection. It usually specifies the content, learning outcomes and the time allocation for various topics.

Course:

It is defines as the series of planed units related to each other. In course of study organized subject is to the covered with specified mind, teaching goods and suggestion for instructional strategies.

Educational program:

It concerns with the specific period of course of study.

Need of Curriculum:

·         Achievement of educational aims

·         Fixing limits

·         Development of democratic values

·         Development of citizenship

·         Development of character

·         Satisfaction of needs

·         Criteria of suitable teacher

·         Acquisition of knowledge

·         Development of personality

·         Reflects trends in education

·         Discoveries of and inventions

ELEMENTS OF CURRICULUM:

Aims, Goals, Objectives:      

                         Educational aims refer to the overall purpose of education, which represent the needs and aspiration in an educational policy. Goals are the general purpose of the educational that normally prepared for particular stage or level of the education system Objective refer more precisely to the changes in behavior ,which we hope will result from studying particular courses,

 Subject Matter or Content:

This is the element, which has been emphasized mainly in the past.

Methodology:

                        It includes the methods adopted by the teacher during instruction and the learning experience or activities performed by the students.

Evaluation:

                        Give a judgment .decision about the worth, value or standard of something according to some specific rules or regulation is called evaluation.

Foundation of Curriculum:

                        Curriculum must take in to account the following consideration or foundations otherwise it will remain bookish and divorced from life. A curriculum that ignores these foundations does not serve any purpose. a sound curriculum  must be based on the needs and aspiration of the learners as well as of the society.

Philosophical Foundation:

                        Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge. It is study of realities and general principles. It concerns with the research of internal truth. Every society is held together by a common faith or “philosophy” which serves its members as guide for living a good life.

Psychological Foundation:

                        The psychology is derived from the Greek words “psyche” means soul and “logos” mean study. Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior. Psychology attempts to describe. Explain and predict human behavior. Psychology gives us an insight in to the child’s development and learning and provides various techniques of inquiry for use in the curriculum area.

Sociological Foundation:

Sociology as deemed in dictionaries is the science or study of society.         A curriculum that ignores sociology foundation does not serve any purpose. It results in wastages of time, energy and resources. It will produce individual, who can’t play their role effectively enlightened members of a society.

Historical Foundation:

                        Every society has its own specific historical background. A curriculum that ignores historical foundation does not fulfill any purpose. For example two nation theory is in the history of Pakistan.

Types of Curriculum:

                        The written curriculum, gives the basic lesson plan to be followed, including objectives, sequence and materials. This provides the basis for accountability. The operational curriculum is what is taught by the teacher and how it is communicated. This includes what the teacher teaches in the class and the learning outcomes for the student.          

The hidden curriculum includes the norms and values of the surrounding society. These are stronger and more durable that the first two and may be in confident with them. The NULL curriculum consists of what is not taught. Consideration must be given to the reason behind why things are not included in the official or operational curriculum.      The extra curriculum is the planed experience outside of the specific educational season.

Formal is the accepted, committee passed, written documents that are supposed to guide practices. Here at Andrews we might find some of this in the university bulletin. Informally curriculum is those activates that happen that are not designed, planned, of formally accepted by the school. Curriculum developers, drawing upon their personal experience, their preferred conception of curriculum and their understanding of curriculum drawn from the curriculum foundations, have constructed curricula according to designs, which may be categorized as

1)      Core curriculum.

2)      Subject centered curriculum.

3)      Learner centered curriculum.

4)      Activity based curriculum.

5)      Integrated curriculum.

1.      Core Curriculum:

The term core curriculum is sometimes simply called the “core”. The terminology applied to core type course includes general education, basic education basic studies, social living and unified studies. Which such divers name, it is expected that there would be vide variation in the programs represented

2.  Subject Centered Curriculum

Subject centered curriculum is still the most widely used curriculum pattern in our schools. It regards learning primarily as cognitive development and the acquisition of knowledge and information. With this approach, the entire subjects for instruction are separated. In general the content areas are taught in isolation, which no attempt at integration.

            The subject curriculum places emphasis on oral discourse and extensive explanation.

3.      Learner Centered Curriculum:

          Child centered curriculum is to be varied and elastic, meeting in visual differences and adopted to individual needs and requirements. Satisfaction of the child nature is period of the equipment for future life.

4.  Activity Based Curriculum:

          In activity based curriculum, the pupils engage in any activities, which are desirable for their development.

5.      Integrated Curriculum:                                                                                                                                        Integration is the process of emerging different subjects or pat subjects through coordination so that individual components lose their subjects identity.

6.  Hidden Curriculum:

The hidden curriculum is a term to used to described the unwritten social rules and expectation of behavior that we all seen to know, but we were taught.

            Hidden curriculum refers to message communicated by the organization and operation of schooling apart from the official or public statements of school mission and subject area curriculum guidelines. In other words the medium is a key source of message. The message of hidden curriculum usually deals with attitudes, values, beliefs and behavior. The massage of hidden curriculum may complement or contradict each other as well as the official curriculum.

Process of Curriculum Development in Pakistan:

            Curriculum revision/development is ideally an ongoing, assessment, planning and design, teacher training materials, implementation monitoring, feedback and evaluation, the curricula renewal is based on the following broad areas of concern.

                        Incorporating issues of global significance include environment change, degradation, population control, gender issues and international understanding and cooperation. Fostering respect for, prevention of cultural tradition, indigenous values and ways of life. Fostering is the moral values through Islamic principle and ethics among pupils. Promoting democratic value, respect for an appreciation of cultural diversity that characterize Pakistani society and the broader global society. To introduce competency based curricula by defining mini involved in learning competence at both primary and secondary level.

Following are the steps involved in curriculum development in Pakistan.

            Curriculum wing request the provincial centers to prepare draft curriculum for each subject taught in various classes up to the class XII. Provincial curriculum committees prepare curriculum plane.

            The draft is sent to the curriculum wing. The national committee of curriculum scrutinized the drafts in the light of the comments. The committee submits its recommendation to the ministry approval. The curriculum schemes duly approved are passed, on the provincial text book.

Nine types of curriculum adaptation:

1. Quantity:

            Adapt the number of items that the learner’s expected to learn or number of activities student will complete prior to assessment for mastery. For example, reduced the number of social studies terms a learner must learn at any one time. Add more practice activities or worksheets.

2. Time:

            Adapt the time allotted and allowed for learning, task completion or testing, for example, individuals a timeline for completing the task, pace learning difficulty for some learner.

3. Level of support:

            Increase the amount of personal assistance to keep the student on task or to reinforce or prompt use of specific skills, enhance adult student’s relationship, use physical space and environmental structure. For example, assign peer buddies, teaching assistant, peer tutors or cross age tutors, specify how to interact with the student or how to structure the environment.

4. Input:                                                                                                                                                                                          adapt the way instruction is delivered to the learner. For example, use different visual aids, enlarge text, plan more concrete examples, provides hands on activities place students in cooperative groups, pre teach key concepts or terms before the lesson.

5. Difficulty:

            Adapt the skill level, problem type or the learner may approach the work. For example allow the use of a calculator to figure math problems, simplify tasks direction and change rules to accommodate learner needs.

6. Output:

            Adapt who the student can respond to instruction. For example instead of answering questions in writing allow a verbal response, use a communication book for some students, allow students to show knowledge with hands on materials.

7. Participation:

            Adapt the extent to which the learner is actively involved in the task. For example, in geography have students hold the globe, while other point out location, ask the students to lead a group. Have the student turn the pages while sitting on your lap.

8. Alternate goals:

            Adapt the goals or outcome expectation while using the some materials, when routinely utilized, this is only for student with moderate to severe disabilities. For example, in a social studies lesson, expect a student to be able to locate the colors of the states on a map, while other students learn to locate each state and name the capital.

9. Substitute curriculum:

            Provide different instruction and materials to meet learner individual’s goals. When routinely utilized, this is only for students with moderate to serve disabilities. For example, during a language lesson a student is learning toileting skills with an aide.

Factors affecting curriculum development in Pakistan:

            As curriculum revision in Pakistan is attempted adhoc basis and is never based on adequate research, experimentation and formative evaluation, the discussion about the failure or success of curriculum implementation will be based on theoretical framework already discussed. As for as desirable outcomes we have not been successful to achieve thus the implementation of curriculum design in Pakistan seems to be a failure.

·         Teacher are reluctant to accept the change

·         Lack of in-service training

·         Political interference

·         Economic problems

·         Inadequate evaluation

·         Lack of commitment of national philosophy

·         Disapproval of the society

·         Lack of sequence

·         Curriculum is more urbanized 

·         Lack of the teaching materials

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