Self-developed curriculum adds efficiency to education

By Bambang Sugeng

YOGYAKARTA (JP): The 1994 school curriculum passed by the government prescribes a national load of 60 percent to 70 percent and a local load of 30 percent to 40 percent. This curriculum, developed by experts, is based on sound visions and missions which carry the principles of link-and-match, local orientation and vertical and horizontal flexibility.

This type of curriculum always has a tendency toward conflict between the prescribed national and local loads. Where the national share is kept in its correct proportion, it will facilitate a conducive learning-teaching processes to achieve the predetermined educational objectives. On the other hand, when the national content overrides the local load, there is the fear this will harm local educational innovations.

One current innovation is for education management to be oriented toward learners' needs and characteristics. The curriculum can convey whether an education management has fulfilled this requirement. A curriculum may be relevant or redundant depending on whether it reflects the requirements of local needs and characteristics. At least four parties are involved in the design and implementation of a curriculum.

First, the students, especially in high school and university, play an important role in the design and implementation of a curriculum. The students' characteristics should be well- reflected in a modern school curriculum. Particularly in the case of nonacademic activities, which are designed to supplement the curriculum, where students often become invaluable resources of input. Any curriculum planning which ignores the specific capabilities of the students for whom it is planned will often experience serious difficulties during the implementation stage.

Second, the teachers takes a major role in almost all phases of curriculum design and implementation. The curriculum can be a great success or a dismal failure depending on the teachers. They are the key people who alone can make the curriculum achieve what it was designed to achieve. For the teacher, a curriculum is not so much what is found in the printed guide book, as what the teacher makes of it in the classroom. It a teacher's adaptation of the curriculum to meaningful learning experiences that really counts. Teachers should use the printed curriculum merely as a general framework, and must feel free to express their teaching strategies and techniques in the way that can best help make them a success in the classroom.

Third, the community, which includes students' parents, has a part in curriculum management. In certain school settings, parents who take active interest in the school's day-to-day affairs may exert a great influence in the success of the school. It can be surprising what happens when parents are consulted in the design and implementation of a curriculum. Not all parents understand how school systems work. However, they do have common sense and ideas which, when well adapted, may elevate the quality of the school curriculum.

Fund raising, homework, problem students and extracurricular activities are some of the areas which will not be such a heavy burden to the school management and staff if parents are brought into the process. All these have a direct impact on the design and implementation of a school curriculum.

Finally, the government has a place in the design and implementation of a school curriculum, by drawing up national policies, syllabi and examinations. In more modern countries, this role may not be as significant. For example, in the United States each state enjoys the freedom to experiment with its own curriculum and examinations, and even within each state school districts can pursue their own programs within certain limits set down by the state Board of Education.

Of the four components mentioned above, the students and teachers are the ones who are directly related to the school. The parents play a role in supplying additional services and facilities, and the government has a part in drawing up the curriculum for national policies.

The need for a core national curriculum is by no means irrelevant. Indeed, it is an educational innovation seen throughout out the world that a nation needs to have some kind of core curricula. In Australia, for example, it is stated that the government accepts the responsibility for ensuring that all students have access to a balanced and relevant core curriculum. A core curriculum guarantees all students experience a common and essential education necessary for them to be able to function effectively in society.

As such, it is reasonable that any core or national curriculum would set broad goals and leave the instructional implications to individual schools. The Australian core curriculum, for example, states the essential features of eight learning areas that must be adopted by all Australian schools. These eight areas of study are English, mathematics, science, social studies and environmental technology, arts, foreign language and health/physical education.

If, however, a core curriculum exceeds what it is supposed to prescribe, certain complications will most certainly occur at the ground level of individual schools. And the one to suffer the most from this excess of control is teachers and students. These are the parties most directly related to curriculum management.

In the first place, it must be admitted that the national curriculum tends to be drawn up more out of under-the-table processes, rather than from on-the-spot observations of empirical practices. The top-down scheme often leaves out details which are different from place to place. This is why Brown, et al, points out that "educational administrators sometimes lose touch with what is happening in actual classrooms and need this important element of feedback from the teachers to keep them informed".

It is another fact that the excessive pressure of the load of the national curriculum tends to restrict teachers' creativity in managing classroom activities. It is not uncommon to find teachers who are so overly concerned with the curriculum requirements that they must sacrifice their teaching creativity. When this happens, the well-intended purposes of the national curriculum deteriorate into the mere act of fulfilling formal requirements.

In the end, it is teachers and classroom activities which come to mind when talking about the national curricula. It is thus important that individual schools be given adequate freedom to function in designing and implementing the school curriculum. There are at least four steps which will allow individual schools to self-develop their curriculum.

First, school teachers must be given more say in the design and implementation of the school curriculum. It is a fact that more and more schools have better quality human resources, thanks to the various scholarship programs that grant teachers access to continuing education. These teachers must be given the trust and responsibility in the academic management of the school. With some reserve, Print says it is school teachers who should become core members of a curriculum development team. Eventually, these teachers should be aided by "outside bodies", such as university staff consultants, school councils, community members, teacher unions, parent organizations and education departments.

It is high time that this "dream team" be given a serious thought. It is high time to cease treating teachers merely as consumers of prescribed curricula and rightly allow them to become decision makers in the design and implementation of school curricula.

Second, the alumni of the school must be given a share of the responsibility. No reference has yet mentioned a place for school alumni in curriculum management. In fact, these individuals possess, in their own way, an insight into how relevant a curriculum is to the demands of the working world. In an era where relevance and professionalism are two important considerations for the development of a sound curriculum, alumni are invaluable sources of information. Though with a different theme in mind, Alwasilah (The Jakarta Post, July 26, 1999) correctly voiced the importance of problem and career-oriented curricula in facing the present social and economic situations. If this is the case, the role of alumni in curriculum management becomes obvious.

Third, action research activities must include curriculum management as one of its priorities. Through its plan-act-reflect cycle, action research is an efficient strategy by which longitudinal studies such as curriculum development and implementation can be approached.

Through its built-in accumulative aspect, action research efficiently monitors and evaluates the implementation of a curriculum, as compared to the plan-tryout-implement procedure most other research studies have. Current references abound with evidence demonstrating that curriculum studies are best approached through action research.

Finally, professional conventions can be used as an effective venue for the development of school curriculums. At the high school level as well as at the university level, teachers have professional organizations. Some schools or departments even have professional organizations related to their particular fields. These bodies also hold conferences not only on academic affairs, but also on the administrative aspects of their education management.

Curriculum may be seen as relevant or redundant depending on whether it reflects the requirements of local needs and characteristics.

It is the teachers and the groups and bodies related to schools that can best ensure the curriculum's links and matches are relevant, and provide vertical and horizontal flexibility. The branches of the Ministry of Education are responsible for ensuring there are adequate facilities for schools, while at the same time easing theirs grips on the implementation of the schools' curricula.

The writer is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Education at the Teachers Training Institute in Yogyakarta.