Curriculum Development Assignment Help
Introduction:
Curriculum generally serves as the basis and foundation of every educational system as it helps in shaping the lives, personality and career of upcoming generation. The process of curriculum creation is not a simple job, as it requires the in-depth understanding of current affairs along with age group of students that needs to be targeted. The structure of any knowledge is such that it cannot be expressed in terms of any pre-specified performance; in most cases the outcomes of teaching are not predictable and might create complexities for educational objectives to encompass (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010).
Definition:
According to Kelly & Melograno, 2004, p.67 the overall curriculum development process methodically manages the basic content that needs to be taught, the way content will be taught and the person responsible in delivering the content.
There are several factors that might influence the curriculum development process. This essay will discuss the influences of social, economic and political on the curriculum development process.
Politics and political situation in the country are two main factors that have great influence on curriculum development, along with social and economic influences (Spafford, 1943, p.213). The education and training of the labour market act as very significant microeconomic contexts in influencing young people (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010 pg, 43). On the other hand social conditions influencing young people related to their broader economic contexts is referred to in the previous section (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010 pg. 46).
Issues – Virtually Here / Great Expectations:
With the latest development in technology, the world is becoming more connected, majority of the businesses and governments are increasingly getting involve in the virtual world, in order to be able to deliver and access services. Studying in virtual environment is rather a new phenomenon that’s mainly influenced by the development of ICT a lot.
The universities have adapted same methodology, as they are not only entering other international markets but various online courses are been offered globally. With the help of digital world universities and other institutes are taking advantages of building new connections with various gadgets, so that better services can be offered (Cook. H, 2012).
Great expectations from people is always been a societal and cultural megatrend as it mainly explores the rising demand for services and experiences over products. By developing a curriculum of good quality, one can have great expectations in return from the next generation (Yildirim, A. (1997). Countries are spending a lot of amount on their education system, as it in return will help in achieving more wealth and growing national income (Cook. H, 2012).
Similarite can be found in the Australian context, where the government is spending a lot in its education industry and expects its students/ next generation in the economic uplift of the country after gaining appropriate education standards (Kridel 2012, p.854). How any society selects, classifies, evaluates and distributes the educational knowledge it considers to be public reflects both the distribution of power and the principles of social control (Bernstein, 1971 p.85).
Economic influence on Curriculum:
One of the key reasons why education industry is funded by the government is mainly to improve the country’s economy. The education system is generally considered as the key to improving overall economic competitiveness and for this particular reason it was deemed as very important to upgrade the whole system (Mutch. C, 2001). Therefore the national curriculum should and must concern itself with the basic requirements of the economy (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010).
From Australian context the education is also seen as an important and crucial aspect in order to improve work place skills and entrepreneurship, in order to be able to improve the economic competitiveness. The generation being taught will need to be employed in the near future, for this very reason the skills required by the country should and must be translated into the content and learning experiences of such market (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010).
In 2006-07 the overall education expenditure in Australia accounted for 5.3 percent of Australia’s GDP (ABS, 2012c). However in five years time period it has risen to 7.1 percent in 2010-11 (ABS, 2012c). This clearly highlights the quality content of the curriculum, and how it’s helping the Australian economy. Such results have definitely created great expectations from the government aspect. At the same time Australian households increased education spending from A$22 billion in 2006-07 to A$31 billion in 2010-11 (ABS, 2012c). Exports of education services from Australia to other countries more than doubled from A$ 8.3 billion in 2004 to almost A$18 billion in 2009-10 (ABS, 2012c).
According to Hudelson, 1994 one of the most critical problems among many educational systems is how to improve various job opportunities for the young generation who are reluctant to compete for a post secondary education. The skills and knowledge required by the industry should and must be developed in the classroom, based on the requirements highlight by various employers, educational institutions find themselves working in order to meet such basic requirements academically and professionally (Yildirim, A. 1997). Based on such evaluations, digital technology that has rapidly overtaken analogue technology heavily relies on various broadband transmission processes that can be accommodated through multimedia content, helping institutes to deliver their content (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010 pg 82).
Social influence on Curriculum:
Every society has their own expectations about the aims and objectives that they must consider when designing the curriculum (Yildirim, A. 1997). Social influence also has a basic perception of what the product of the school system should look like.
If majority of the schools are to provide a social anchor, for their students in the future it cannot be by reproducing the same content what it was in the past (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010, pg. 56).
Almost every singly community include Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and various other adherents of other religions, it is because of this reason that their views must be considered when designing a curriculum. In case if this does not happen he curriculum becomes irrelevant (Yildirim, A. 1997). There may be various groups of people who would not tolerate a curriculum that does not include religious and other moral education system (Cook. H, 2012). It is because of this reason that the design of curricular materials and their presentation should accommodate the overall culture of the society that the curriculum is generally seeking to serve. In case if a curriculum is gender biased against males or females, mainly because it includes instructional materials that portray negative attitudes towards any gender (Yildirim, A. 1997).
Considering the virtual environment, what worked in the past cannot be the same recipe of the future, while preparing for virtual mobility activities, teachers has to design a curriculum of high quality (Magnus. V). For many universities technology based curriculum designs and its implementation has become an important precondition of teacher’s competence (Morrison et al 1996). The use of such virtual environment is aiming at realization of its socio-cultural, transfer of social experience of staff to their students.
Another important and key issue that emerges related to the social issue is related to the values, that the people hold. Majority of the schools curriculum do not exist in any form of isolation from a society’s values and from an important perspective it is a reflection of those values. Important question that arises is that what values, whose values and how values can be taught that is part of a school curriculum (Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010, pg. 98). It is therefore possible for curriculum to have both positive and negative influences on the social values of society.
According to Kennedy. K, Brady. L, 2010 pg. 98 the social values of any society reflect its historical, political and cultural contexts that operate in unique ways to demonstrate those values at particular times.
Political influence on Curriculum:
In most of the scenarios the content of school curriculum has always been the subject of various controversies and considerable public attention in majority of the countries (Levin. B, 2007). This section will examine the various political dynamics that play a key role in the construction of school curriculum. Policies made by the government usually govern just about every single aspect of education, what schooling will be provided, how, to whom it will be provided, what mediums will be used and what resources will be used in developing such curriculum (Levin. B, 2007).
Another important factor to consider that plays its part on having an influence towards curriculum design is politics. Both private and public institutions are very much affected by politics on the basis of how the curriculum design is being funded. Funds fuel everything from who will deliver the information, when it will be delivered and what mode of delivery will be utilized. It won’t be wrong to consider that “the greater funding there is, the better curriculum design is at stake.” Most of the curriculum designs, regardless how worst they are due to poor funding, can still be considered as good for some institutes if they are able to make the best out of it. Funding from government is mainly considered as an administration’s way of expressing their degree of affiliation to improving education in their areas of responsibility that is highly dependent on the nature of politics. As long as a curriculum design is not deprived of its allocated funds to operate in an optimum level, it creates great expectations to generate something in return that are positive in nature. Every single policy decision made by the government can be seen as being in some sense an overall political decision (Levin. B, 2007). In most cases, majority of the curriculum development decisions made by government are usually made with little or no public attention at all.
