Curriculum Development in New Zealand - Article Example

Name Instructor’s Name Course Name Date Critique on Curriculum development in New Zealand The journal on Curriculum Development in New Zealand, is an educational review aimed at describing the main changes that have occurred New Zealand’s curriculum for the past years. The article further relates the original components embedded in the framework of New Zealand’s curriculum, the 1993 official statement policy concerning learning, teaching and school assessment process. Other discussed issues include the current nature of curriculum development in New Zealand, the government’s role in curriculum development. Finally, the latest curriculum dynamics on secondary schools are elaborated. New Zealand is a small country possessing high mobility and rural population. There exists a long-standing national need for opportunity equality. The education structure of New Zealand has a characteristic of a centralized curriculum development. The framework differs from Wales and England’s national curriculum to the extent of adopting latest assessment requirement in the curriculum. Since the beginning of the 1993, the curriculum sought to raise the school leaving age to 16 years old. This intended to achieve two goals; the existing need for skilled work force and reflection on students trends to continue studying until they reach an age of 16 years old (Philip 155). Since the establishment of the primary school curriculum, an education Act was enacted with an intention of making the primary education compulsory, free, and secular. The Thomas report offered a basis for secondary school courses and programs, which were designed to ascertain all secondary school students regardless of their occupational ambitions and abilities, access a well-balanced and generous education. The regulations enacted in the year 1945 sought to make general subjects compulsory in secondary schools; while legalizing a big range of prescriptions and options concerning the School Certificate Examination and increasing the leaving age for students from 14 to 15 years. Centralized curriculum development has numerous disadvantages. It is evident that, the teachers require more than standards of statement in the improvement of the academic performances of the students. In the past years before the introduction of centralized curriculum development, the teachers used to formulate their own curriculum. These helped in the effectiveness of the teaching since the teachers were passionate about what they were teaching. A teacher will always deliver once he/she is in control of one’s material; while possessing a sense of how their students will learn about history and math by utilizing the teacher’s material. Forcing a curriculum on a teacher is extremely difficult. It is evidently clear that a considerable percentage of people use their right brain while others use their left-brain, in the same respect; some curriculum perform well with the inclusion of some learning styles as opposed to others. In order to offer a centralized curriculum development, the government of New Zealand incurs many expenses to its realization. Provision of good classrooms and textbooks in the absence of teachers or parent proved meaningless. The students are leaving school at an extremely young age of 15 to 16 years. The graduating students at this age are not mature enough to handle various challenges present in the employment field. Again, at age 16, the student will only possess basic education that could not guarantee competitive employment opportunities in the global sphere. Low education will aggravate the existing condition in New Zealand where problem of opportunity equality persists. People with low education will always settle for less paying jobs; while the educated people get the highest paying jobs. These factors highly contribute to the existing social gaps. The centralized curriculum of New Zealand made some subject compulsory. This could have a negative effect to students who are not good in those compulsory subjects, but can perform well in other subject that are not compulsory. The second review after Thomas Report sought to unify a general curriculum for the new entrants (1to5-year-olds). The review appeared as a remedy for the existing fragmentation in the school curriculum, as far as, the subject syllabuses is concerned. It involved the community I the young people’s education, which would help in the removing achievement barriers. Equity issues concerning girls, Maori and women, were dominant. The review could have helped in elevating the education system of New Zealand, but this was not fully realized since the implementation of most of the listed recommendations never materialized. Education policies In Labor Government’s second term, the Education Minister, David Lange, initiated significant educational administrative reforms (Philip 155). The policy decision signaling reforms to the assessment in schools and national curriculum included: the responsibility of the Ministry of Education in setting the objectives of the national curriculum; giving the parents a wide range of choice in regards to the making decisions concerning and governance of the schools where their children attend. The policies enacted sought to bring contractual arrangements to be undertaken in curriculum development, and the implementation development of school charters that was inclusive of local and national objectives of the curriculum. The objectives ensured that all the students’ needs were taken into account by respective schools. The policy development helped the schools in becoming self-managing and possessed the ability of using their resources in accordance to needs that were locally identified. The value-added assessment on teachers has a high likelihood of misclassification and excessive errors and is deficient in measuring the necessary range of skills required for effective teaching. Utilization of the moratorium in necessary, until a conclusive accuracy level, is achieved in teacher evaluation structure. A narrowed scripted curricula serves a significant role for under qualified and novice teachers, those situated in locations where the centralized curriculum is unavailable. The setting of objectives by the Ministry of Education might help the students placed at an advantaged location; while affecting those at disadvantaged locations. For instance, the student located in remote areas might not cope effectively with their fellow students in urban areas. The government objectives in terms of the curriculum should vary depending on the location of the school. The parents should be concerned with their children’s wellbeing, but should not be given the mandate of governing the school since some could be lacking the governance skills, thus affecting the running of the school. The government should manage schools than leaving the schools to manage itself due to two important factors: the school managing body might lack leadership qualities thus embezzling the school resources. Schools in remote areas might have limited resources in comparison to schools in urban areas. The report of the Ministerial Working Party (1990) termed as ABLE (assessment for better learning), discussed the necessary changes of improving learning and teaching in New Zealand. It recommended the national monitoring procedures in improving the effectiveness and health of New Zealand school structure, as well as, reviewing school certificates; this is the national examination offered by New Zealand Qualification Authority that a big percentage of New Zealand pupils sit once they terminate their third year at secondary school level. It also recommended for the issuance of cumulative National Certificate of Education as part of school leaver documentation. The education ministry of New Zealand should focus on the entire curriculum, rather than focusing on the certificate since the curriculum used has its origin in the developed and reports of the 1980’s. They should come up with the most recent curriculum since some of the things that the curriculum adopted in the 1980’s cannot be adopted in the current world. Role of the government in Curriculum development The government of New Zealand has launched major qualification and curriculum reforms. It has focused on the Achievement Initiative policy, and the National Qualifications Framework; a framework that intends to integrate the available qualifications to tertiary, New Zealand secondary students and people undertaking workplace training (Philip 156). The main purposes of Achievement Initiative are in establishing precise standards of achievement each level of compulsory schooling in science, mathematics, English, technology and te reo Maori. Other subject will later follow the trend. It also aims at developing procedures of national assessment, at main schooling stages. This will help in monitoring the learning progress of all students. The allocation of necessary resources to schools to assist the student with exceptional abilities or underachieving students is embedded in the Achievement Initiative. The current government policies manifesto in conjunction with the Ministry of Education has led to the revision of the National Education Guidelines responsible of forming the compulsory school charters. This intends to ensure the specification of school requirements and the intention of boosting the student’s achievement are clearly stipulated in the official document. The allocation of significant resources to schools is of great advantage if intends to assist all students, but this is not the case in New Zealand since much emphasis are given to students will exceptional ability and those who are underperforming. It is pitiful that average students might not benefit from these vital resources. Another problem affecting the educational curriculum in New Zealand is constant political interference. Numerous governments have changed a thing or two in the educational curriculum of New Zealand affecting the stability of the system. Curriculum Framework The framework was meant for learning, assessment and teaching in New Zealand schools. The framework is inclusive of all schools in New Zealand, which includes special education and Maori immersion schools. Students from year 1 to 13 irrespective of; belief, gender, ethnicity, disability or ability, cultural or social background, and geographic location are within the framework (Philip 159). The framework has been build from past curriculum development inclusive of recommendations from recent, major educational reviews, schools submissions, adopted views of enterprise and business, and the public, as well as, the board of trustees. The framework intends to strike a balance between the economy and society’s requirement in regards to the interest of an individual student. It also targets at fostering development of a work force that adaptable and greatly skilled, in respect to the international perspective. The curriculum framework of New Zealand forms the initial comprehensive national curriculum statement in New Zealand schools. The curriculum Framework in New Zealand is the national curriculum overarching statement present in the Act. The curriculum statement intends to present significant skills, knowledge and the expected student understanding in specified subjects and learning areas, like science and mathematics. The framework and other essential documents intend to monitors the progress of the students against the objectives of national achievement. It analyzes the existing barriers to achievement and learning, and in the development and implementation of strategies that focus on identified learning requirements meant to overcome learning barriers to students. It helps the students in assessing achievements of the student while maintaining students’ report and records in checking their progress. The Curriculum framework in New Zealand categorizes skills meant for development of the student into eight sections namely: numeracy, solving of problems, communication, cooperative and social skills, competitive and self-management skills, study and work skills, and physical skills. The framework ensures the integral place of values and attitudes within the school curriculum; this intends to show that the curriculum should be all-inclusive in regards to things valued by both the school community and society and still respect an individual’s right. The framework is lacking in that, the establishment of compulsory subjects has led to poor performance of the students. This could result from insufficient guidance embedded in the scheme, which could prove problematic for new teachers and those embarking to teaching after a career break. The aspect of the curriculum inclusive of process and content coverage puts much emphasis on bicultural and technology perspective, a factor that is not encompassed in the schemes; the students could end up missing some classroom programs to this factor. Once the teacher employs these schemes in teaching, the students might not understand the existing association between mathematics and other subjects. The student lacks experiences technology-rich mathematics. Curriculum development in New Zealand Before 1989, the Education department played a significant role in the development of curriculum in New Zealand. The expertise comprising of the Curriculum development unit had extensive school-based experience in numerous fields (Philip, 160). Their key responsibilities were preparing latest curriculum documents, which ranged from syllabuses to learning and teaching resources to guidelines. The process involves consultations from practicing teachers, who are responsible of preparing draft materials that are later tried in numerous schools. The curriculum development unit later met to review the obtained feedback prior to publication of the document. The process was time consuming, but the results measured to their inputs. The 1980 education restructuring process suffered a drawback due to lack of development of explicit policies. Later the curriculum was replaced by a more explicit policy oriented curriculum. Apart from being driven by policies, the curriculum extensively retains its operational role. Most of the activities are contract based. This makes most of the work in the current curriculum to be operated by a small core of officers, placed in the ministry responsible of developing policies and a group that facilitates contractual process. The initial curriculum developed in the 1980s lacked in numerous factors, which involved the absence of explicit policies. The latter utilized curriculum was named as being the most efficient curriculum, but it also had its weaknesses. Key among the weakness included, its inability to making some subjects compulsory a factor that continues to affect the performance of the students who are not good at the compulsory subjects. Work Cited Philip, David. Curriculum development in New Zealand. Educational Review 45.2 (1993): 155-164. Print. Read More