National Curriculum in Schools in England - Essay Example

A school curriculum is a set of courses and their content offered in a school. A course curriculum incorporates the modes of teaching and the subsequent evaluation strategies. Curriculums guide the teachers in delivering their services. A national curriculum is therefore the set of courses that a government sets to apply in all the school levels in a country. This implies the uniformity in the education sector owing to the fact that all the schools in the country offer similar courses to their students and follow similar teaching methodologies in doing so. Curriculums require effective formulation following the adequate assessment of the information needs in the learner among other factors that affect the learning process (GOLBY, GREENWALD, & WEST, 1975). After determining these, the curriculum developers determine the best concepts that every stage of the learner requires ad the best methods of teaching such concepts thereby guaranteeing effective acquisition of knowledge. A curriculum should not burden the leaners by ensuring that the developers constitute the most appropriate concepts for every stage of the learning process thereby guaranteeing optimum learning. This requires the consideration of such pertinent features of the learner as their age and the knowledge gap. Additionally, an effective curriculum introduces concepts progressively thereby ensuring that the learner understands each concept at the most appropriate age. Besides the development of the concepts for the learner, curriculums manage the teachers. A curriculum must consider and set feature requirements for the teacher thereby ensuring that only the most effective teachers impart the knowledge in the learners. A curriculum therefore advises the teachers on the best earning aids for every learning stage and the mode of teaching to ensure a productive system. Additionally, curriculums should always reflect the state of the society within which it is applied in a number of ways, the knowledge in the curriculum must have direct relevance with the environment within which it is used. This implies that the curriculum must envision the knowledge growth through time. An effective curriculum therefore has a period lapse within which it is reviewed. In the United Kingdom, the period is four years a time within which the developers remove certain aspects of the curriculum and replacing them with new concepts. This safeguards the technological changes in the society most of which demand different knowledge from the previous period (WILES, 2009). A national curriculum is uniformly implemented in all the schools in the country. Most countries currently have uniform curriculums in their schools. The construction of such curriculums require the consideration of the demographic factors prevalent in every part of the country most of which may affect the learning process thereby developing an effective curriculum which considers the diversities of the different regions in the country. The United Kingdom is one such country with a uniform curriculum in most of the learning institution. The application of a uniform curriculum presents a number of advantages and have the possibility of improving the quality of education in a country. However, such curriculums have a number of disadvantages most of which may impair the affectivity of the learning process. Despite the provision of a uniform curriculum especially in public schools, the government has no mandate to monitor the activities of private schools most of which formulate and implement their own curriculums. Such disparities imply that learners in the country graduate with diverse knowledge possibly resulting in the lack of uniformity in the subsequent institutions of learning. Despite the existence of such disparities, the education institutions implement a national exam at the end of every stage of the learning stage thereby compelling compliance with the national curriculum in the country. The private schools also sit their students through such exams since it is only through such exams that learner progress their learning process in the country. This normally compel the private schools to resort to certain features of the national curriculum to obtain guidance on the nature of the national examinations (UNRUH & UNRUH, 1984). However, since the government does not monitor their activities, they do this sparingly often possessing their own means of impairing their students with the relevant knowledge for passing the national exams. One of the key advantages of a uniform curriculum in the United Kingdom is the uniformity of implementation especially at earlier learning stages. Pupils in lower primary possess different features and abilities, with a uniform curriculum therefore the government ensures that the students learn similar concepts and in similar manners thereby developing a uniform group of learners. Such a curriculum gives the learners a similar opportunity to identify their potentials and talents thereby nurturing such. This is unlike the non-uniform curriculum through which different pupils in different institutions possess different skills. At such early stages, the curriculum must address the basic features of the learner thereby having direct relevance to the process of academic growth in the learner. This implies that the curriculum must address the pertinent features of the learners thereby developing concepts that facilitate the growth and development of the learner. Developing such a curriculum is expensive since it requires an extensive research among the learner group most of whom are children. Such a research group presents different complexities thereby making carrying out a research among them not only tedious but also expensive since they normally have the highest number in every society. Such a research must investigate the diversities of the intended learner and therefore develop a curriculum that considers every unique feature that the different children present. Such a research is therefore too expensive for private institutions and require government funding. The government has the financial abilities to carry out such a research suing the best human resource. This implies that the government is the only institution in the country capable of developing an all-inclusive curriculum, one that considers the different features of the learner group. This therefore makes a national curriculum more effective than the different curriculums that the private schools may opt to develop for themselves. Additionally, it is easier to implement a uniform national curriculum in schools. This arises from the fact that teachers have the knowledge of its features and requirements. This makes it easier to manage the institutions of learning without compelling the government to spend more on teacher training. A teacher must always have knowledge of the curriculum by understanding the different syllabuses effectively as explained in the curriculum. This includes the different books among other teaching aids and the process of evaluation. This requires experience that most teachers acquire through continued teaching. By having different curriculums in different institutions of learning, teachers will have to spend both time and financial resources acquitting themselves with the different curriculums. A national curriculum therefore makes the management of academic institutions easier as teachers easily transfer from one region to another yet still find it possible to teach the different students effectively. Teachers are the most essential human resource in the learning process. Just like in any other corporate organization, teachers too require management and motivation. Among the most effective forms of teacher motivation is the provision of promotions normally best implemented through transfers especially in public schools. By transferring a teachers to other schools, the get the opportunities to develop their management skills and therefore become established professionals in the carrier. Transfers therefore require that teachers have the technical knowhow of the curriculum thereby making it easier to enter into the new systems. This makes their knowledge more valuable both to them and to the learner. Any aspect of the carrier that inconveniences the teacher directly affects the quality of knowledge they impart on their students a fact that makes the national curriculum of much essence in the improvement of the quality of education in the country (WILES & BONDI, 2011). The different levels of education require a degree of management coherence. This implies that before graduating from one level to another, the stakeholders in the education system should have a mechanism of evaluating the students and prove their academic maturity thereby permitting them into the next advanced level of education such as a high school or into either a collage or a university. To implement this effectively, the stakeholders in the system require a uniform examination such as the GCSE among other qualification exams. Such exams evaluate the learner’s maturity and ability to understand the advanced knowledge of the subsequent levels. Since such exams are uniform, it is always only fair therefore to take students thorough a similar curriculum thereby giving them equal opportunity to perform their relative best in the exam and earn promotion to the advanced levels of education. Despite the numerous advantages of a national curriculum, such a curriculum presents a number of disadvantages. The fact that different students perform different with poor performance often rampant in poor regions imply that such curriculums do not consider the disparities in the regions. Different regions have different demographic factors, which coincidentally affect the performance of the students. A curriculum should therefore consider such and make students acquire relevant knowledge (SCHUBERT, 1986). The acquisition of irrelevant knowledge implies that students become less equipped to adapt to their environments. An effective curriculum should therefore consider such factors and therefore become useful in the development of effectively developed graduates of the education system capable of adapting to the environment by using the opportunities that the environment provides. In retrospect, a national curriculum presents numerous advantages to a country. An effective government will establish an experienced task force comprising of education stakeholders to investigate the disadvantages of a uniform curriculum such as the result disparities and therefore develop effective means of curbing such trends. This therefore results in a uniform education system throughout the country. Additionally, a uniform curriculum is an effective management tool used by stakeholders to improve the quality of education. However, a national curriculum requires frequent reviews possibly more frequent than the four-year time lapse as stipulated by the government. This ensures that students obtain knowledge that is more practical with relevance to their environment. References GOLBY, M., GREENWALD, J., & WEST, R. (1975). Curriculum design. London, Croom Helm [for] the Open University Press. SCHUBERT, W. H. (1986). Curriculum: perspective, paradigm, and possibility. New York, Macmillan Pub. Co. UNRUH, G. G., & UNRUH, A. (1984). Curriculum development: problems, processes, and progress. Berkeley, Calif, McCutchan Pub. Corp. WILES, J. (2009). Leading curriculum development. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Corwin Press. WILES, J., & BONDI, J. (2011). Curriculum development: a guide to practice. Boston, Pearson. Read More