The debates around second-level education have centred on resources, accessibility, management structures, ownership and control. The central educational issues - what is taught, how it is taught and to what purpose - are largely ignored as is the question of who makes the decisions on what constitutes a school programme.
It is important at the outset to distinguish between syllabus and curriculum. The syllabus is essentially a subject course. The curriculum can be viewed as the overall school programme based on general educational principles such as breadth and balance for the holistic development of the student. It can be argued that school programmes are dominated by syllabus to the detriment of curriculum.
Curriculum is a selection from the culture. The problem is if the culture changes can the curriculum stay static? Irish society has changed profoundly - demographically, economically and culturally in relatively recent times. The question is: has the cultural selection which constitutes curriculum developed sufficiently to meet the needs of our young people on the brink of a new millennium?
Have we sufficiently supplemented the old three Rs with the new three Ts - Thinking, Team and Technology . . . not to mention the three Is - Integrity, Independence and Intelligence?
Significant advances have been made in computer education. However, there is a danger of centring in a utilitarian spirit the dispensing of cybernated skills into the heart of the curriculum. Surely the priority must be the development of consciousness and reflection, if we are to develop the person at least as far as education can contribute to these essential social and indeed environmental imperatives. The economics of greed and the selfish values of post modernism are counter forces against this aspiration.
One can identify five traditions or perspectives of curriculum.
The national curriculum which may, for example, aim to revive the Irish language or produce the functional citizen.
The technological curriculum which aims to update the technical skill base of students.
The classical curriculum - subject-based and dominant at second level.
The vocational curriculum, whose purpose is job placement
The contemporary cultural analysis curriculum - identified as such by the English educationalist Mike Golby. It is a democratic curriculum generated in a process of consultation between parents, students, social agencies and educationalists. The resultant curriculum would be based on agreed needs and on a mutual cultural selection. For example, the development of self-esteem and structures to encourage self-directed learning through intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation might well shape the new curriculum.
THE Transition Year programme can be seen as a curriculum in the tradition of contemporary cultural analysis. The Department of Education's guidelines on Transition Year call for negotiated learning to take place. Let's hope that the National Parents Council in particular will respond positively to this invitation during the year.
The curriculum must be rescued from the syllabus mind set. As Michael Caine, playing a London-based gangster in Niall Jordan's film,
Mona Lisa, said in his cockney accent: "I look after the little things and the big things look after themselves." What I am saying as a Dublin-based educationalist is - if we don't look after the big things what meaningful purpose can the small things have?
Education & Living
Editor: Ella Shanahan
Production: Hugh Lambert and Harry Browne Cover
Illustrations: Cathy Dineen
Email: education@irish-times.ie
