9.6 REVAMPING CURRICULUM (CURRICULUM CHANGE)

Curriculum Change

Hoyle (1995: 58) defines change às embracing the concepts of innovation development, renewal and improvement of a curriculum, Curriculum change is dictated by the changes in the economic, social and technological aspects of a society. Change has magnitude and direction and occurs within a definite time frame.

Curriculum Innovation

Harris et al. (1995: 60) describes innovation as "an intentional and deliberate process to bring out desired effects and change". Curriculum innovation refers to ideas or practices that are new and different from those that exist in the formal prescribed curriculum.

Curriculum innovation is any improvement that is deliberate, durable, durable and unlikely to occur frequently. It is the creation, selection, organization and utilization of human and material resources in ways that result in higher achievement of curriculum goals and objectives.

The difference between innovation and change lies in the fact that novation is always planned while change may occur in response to external events. For any curriculum innovation to be meaningful and effective, it must be planned and organized. It is possible that other types of changes may occur when they are not planned.

The Context of Curriculum Change and Innovation

Change and innovation in the curriculum are necessitated by factors in a country's political, social, economic, cultural, the explosion of knowledge, meeting diversified human needs, studies in human development and. kaming processes, school dropouts, pressure groups and technological environments.

The education system changes in order to address the emerging needs and demands. Educational changes and innovations in most countries, including Pakistan are products of these factors.

Emerging global education reform agenda

• The major components of this new education reform agendainclude:
• Higher standards of education for all students.
• Centralized curriculum that ensures common and consistent coverage of what every student should know and be able to do often in the form of high standards.
• Literacy and numeracy as primary targets of reform
• Indicators and attainment targets of student achievement and curriculum planning that enable teachers and others to be nach clear whether these standards have been cached or not.
• Aligned assessments that are tightly linked to the p curriculum, learning standards, and indicators making that teachers focus on high learning achievements for a students prescrib
• Consequential accountability where the school performan and especially raising the quality of education are close tied to the processes of accreditation, promotion, inspecti and ultimately funding and rewarding or punishing.

Sources of Curriculum Change and Innovation

At the national level, curriculum change and innovation arise fro deliberate policy decisions. Another impetus for change and innovation i the desire of authorities at various levels to deliberately change establish practices in order to address existing problems or identify new problems and ways of dealing with these problems.

The introduction of new technology can also lead to curriculum change and innovation. For example, computers are being used in almos every endeavor of our society. The education system and its curriculum must adapt to this new reality. It must not only use computers i administrative purposes, but also make the computer and relate technological advancements part of the curriculum.