Developing a World Class Curriculum

To develop a world class curriculum, all education stakeholders should be involved in its development process, starting with teachers, students, school principals, curriculum experts, researchers, university professors, and parents each to a certain extent, as education is one big collaborative enterprise.

Teachers are the experts in the field, and they need to be in the centre of this process. They need to have their input in the written curriculum as they will be implementing it in schools, so that it becomes the learnt curriculum. When teachers are part of the curriculum development, they would bring the practical point of view into it keeping it relevant, and would make more sense of it while delivering it, and have ownership; a teacher would know what content, knowledge, attitudes and skills are needed to be developed and delivered in schools in certain times, to make meaningful learning to learners.

As we aim to have a child-centred education, students need to be part of curriculum development; students can be extremely creative, and intelligent. If we want to create engaged, responsible citizens, we have to start by including students to be part of the decision-making process of curriculum development, we have to hear their voices and empower them. As I believe that everyone learns differently, we need to take different perspectives of students into consideration, so that we know our audience better to tailor the curriculum to them. We might also have alumni as part of the students’ group. Students might recommend having subjects like music, arts, debate, or even public relations, etc.

School leaders/principals want to know how to make their schools successful by having good students’ learning outcomes, and they know what the society needs from young people. It is certainly the school’s responsibility to provide quality education to young people and prepare them for life and to put them through wide range of experiences- these experiences from their selection, to arrangement, to coordination, to delivery of learning are all transmitted by mean of the curriculum. This is why it is important to have the principals’ perspectives, and input into the curriculum.

Being instructional leaders, they are part of curriculum implementation at schools; school leaders would set the education goals for their school, policy, and vision that would serve the greater aim of curriculum; they would also support teachers in designing, implementing and evaluating the instructional programme of the school, as well as delivering their objectives per grade per level; they should create the needed teaching environment for them. They should be part of the development process to understand how to identify the needed support, mentorship, guidance and development opportunities to teachers to enhance their capabilities to deliver the curriculum. The school leader from his/her strategic position would work collaboratively with teachers on instruction development.

Curriculum experts/generalists and specialists would have the leadership role in the process of curriculum development and would have their technical expertise as input. These experts would recommend approaches that are convenient and requested by the education community- they might suggest different philosophies to be adopted, instructional methods, and educational technologies. Curriculum generalists would select appropriate textbooks, materials, support teachers, put recommendations and expectations for delivery in schools. They would evaluate it regularly.

Researchers can be part of the curriculum development process, these might be university researchers or private groups; these stakeholders can bring the best in world curriculums, best practices, better services to our school children, reflect on lessons learnt from other countries, and suggest them after taking our context into consideration.

Parents are also part of the wider group of community to have their input in curriculum design, this might be in content, and programming. The collaboration between parents and school has grew into a partnership in the recent years, as parents’ role and awareness has grown with the rise in their involvement level in their children’s learning, especially now during online learning. Parents have a big role in developing their children’s physical, psychological and moral growth. For example, in Arab worlds, parents might have special care about having strengthened family bonds, they have societal concerns towards education; they want to develop specific values in their children to be later responsible of building the society, culture and the future. Parents’ support at home to their children is the extension of teaching inside the classroom as they are active collaborators in their children’s learning. As parents understand their children’s needs, challenges and learning styles, they can reflect this within group discussions for curriculum development to make sure that their children’s needs are being met in the curriculum- this will increase the likelihood of curriculum reinforcement at home.

University professors should also have a very important input into the curriculum development process, adding their technical expertise in curriculum implementation, effective teaching methods, effective design of courses and strategies, ensuring quality of instruction, innovation in delivery, and implementation- especially that these professors are responsible of preparing the capacity of pre-service teachers through Teaching Diploma.

As a conclusion, with this responsibility comes accountability of all parties involved in the curriculum development.