'More unity needed in Curriculum.nu proposals'
The proposals presented by Curriculum.nu in 2019 must be further elaborated and harmonized. That is what Professor Roel Kuiper, chairman of the committee that has examined the proposals under the microscope, says.
Picture: Type tank
The core objectives and learning outcomes that are currently being used are outdated. Friend and foe have agreed on this for years. In 2014, the then State Secretary Sander Dekker therefore kicked off a curriculum review that was to yield new core objectives and attainment targets.
In 2019, the Curriculum.nu coordination group published the preliminary yield: proposals for the content of core objectives for nine learning areas that are addressed in both primary and secondary education. From Dutch and art & culture to gymnastics and digital literacy. The development teams 'from the professional field' that formulated the proposals also included teachers.
The technical usefulness of the proposals for the development of core objectives and attainment targets is limited
OCW submitted one last year scientific committee in which had to give an opinion on their 'technical and substantive usability' of the proposals. Professor Roel Kuiper, chairman of this committee, has great appreciation for the work of the development teams. “They have done very important work,” he says in a telephone conversation. “Because a new curriculum cannot be created without shared ownership with the field. Teachers and school leaders from all over the country have contributed, which shows an enormous commitment.”
Limited
The committee is less positive about the content of the learning areas. 'The professional results of Curriculum.nu can be used as a starting point for the follow-up process', the report states. 'But the technical usefulness of the proposals for the development of attainment targets and learning outcomes is limited.'
In particular, the committee lacks a clear structure in the learning areas. The starting points of a curriculum are 'qualification, socialization and personal development', says the committee. However, this basis was 'not consistently applied in the elaboration of Curriculum.nu's proposals'.
The coherence between the learning areas has not yet been sufficiently thought through
Furthermore, the coherence between the learning areas and issues such as continuous learning pathways are 'not yet sufficiently thought out', according to the committee. Finally, some learning areas require extra attention.
The next step in the process would be that the SLO curriculum development foundation takes the proposals from Curriculum.nu develop into core goals. During that process, work would then continue to draw up proposals for the final attainment levels of secondary education, because they are not yet ready. However, this process has now come to a standstill because Curriculum.nu has been declared controversial due to the fall of the cabinet.
Harmonized
According to Kuiper, the current proposals must in any case first be harmonized before work on drawing up learning outcomes can begin. “And make the process a bit easier,” he says. “Because there were also overarching themes that all learning areas had to take into account, such as climate and health. I would say: link an overarching theme only to the disciplines that are directly related to it, and stick to that. Sometimes we want a lot in the Netherlands. ”
Corona epidemic
How the curriculum review process will proceed is a question for the new cabinet. According to Kuiper, whether the process should continue is not in dispute. “At the moment, education has its hands full with the corona epidemic, but we do not have the luxury of abandoning the revision of the curriculum. You have to keep modernizing a curriculum. We have to make this a fixed cycle, because each revision is now always a separate process that stands too much in isolation and takes too long. ”
Incidentally, the current revision is currently mainly taking place at a national level, Kuiper emphasizes. "So that the process of revision is not yet very burdensome for individual schools."
Teachers and lecturers must support the solutions and must be given the time and space to implement them
De AOb advises the new cabinet to temporarily concentrate the revision of the curriculum on the areas of Dutch (due to the declining literacy of students) and arithmetic / mathematics. “Let's focus on the basic skills, which is also where the urgency is felt in the field,” says AObdriver Jelmer Evers. These are the areas that also have the highest priority in clearing backlogs from the corona crisis.
schop
So start small, says Evers, and not overhaul the entire curriculum. “Certainly in these times there are more urgent problems than major system changes. And in the process, continue to ensure input and support from the field, from the teachers. They know how it works in practice and after all, they will soon have to work with it. ”
Investments
And once the new curriculum is ready to be implemented, there are structural investments in time, space and professionalization, says Evers. “Teachers and lecturers must stand behind those solutions and must be given time and space to implement them. For example, people must actually be able to be exempted from other tasks so that there is time to research and try out the new curriculum. ”
Read more?
