Development of the National Curriculum on Regional Level.

by Urve Läänemets PhD, Tallinn Education Board, e-mail:

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Lahti, Finland 22-25 September 1999

Abstract:

Implementation of the National Curriculum as a framework for development of local curricula started in Estonia in 1996/1997 school year. Due to lack of state program for implementation of the NC tendencies of educational urbanisation are quite clear. In 1997 a system of national examinations was started which has placed schools in an unequal position considering their staffs and local conditions. Since educational situation in general comprehensive schools in the capital where now about 1/3 of all the population is residing, has caused specific demands for flexible types of local curricula for schools, it became necessary to consider regional aspects in both- educational management and curriculum development. In two years within a special project some of the curricula have been developed with an attempt to preserve the traditional national school culture and also consider the educational tendencies within the EU and Europe in general. Attempts are being made to differentiate between different types of upper secondary education with possible integration of vocational education.

Special attention has been paid for SEN children in the broad sense of the concept, including the talented children, the socially neglected and the children needing different medical treatment. New educational technologies are widely used, the level of computerisation at schools is reasonably high. Research carried out on development of new contents, implementation of the NC and national examinations and teachers’ attitude has given material for making changes in educational policy on different levels. Flexibility and decentralisation of the content and educational processes have to be well balanced in order to guarantee equal access to general and vocational education for all the residents of the country as well as their social mobility. Expected academic achievement of students and their skills of social adjustment for reaching a specified educational level (primary, lower secondary or upper secondary) has to be carefully considered from the point of cultural context, geopolitical and social situation. Accordingly the content of education as well as organising learning process has to be planned and implemented from the point of regional social demand for education as well as that of students’ feasibility and opportunities offered by traditional ways of learning but also new educational technologies.

Introduction:

Problems of curriculum design became especially important in many post-socialist countries after the collapse of the empire and under the circumstances innovational change in education was unavoidable. Development of new curricula for different educational levels and types of school started almost immediately and soon the first draft versions appeared. Although the initial position for the mentioned change was more or less similar , for today the developments have progressed in different directions. Some have managed to study the western educational literature on curriculum theory and design, some have decided to follow and copy educational experience of different countries, some have tried to keep a more balanced approach and to preserve some older versions of the content of education. Accordingly, developments have been extremely different and the so-called “opening up” period of recent eight years has brought along first results as well as problems.

One of the problems we are facing today is that of reaching political consensus and cohesion of educational decisions made for management of the present system and for its future innovation. In the field of planning, strategic planning and forward planning a lot has been achieved in EU countries ( Eurrydice Survey 1, 1999), in which also the problem of curriculum development has deserved attention considering general educational trends for development towards direction of societies of knowledge. The same steps of planning are also needed for probably all the 25 post-socialist countries, more often called as states of transition.

However, educational developments in Estonia have not yet resulted in generally acknowledged and officially accepted documents specifying any educational reforms or scenarios chosen for implementation , although several interesting attempts have been made. One of those is development of the National Curriculum(NC) on regional level in town Tallinn, where the first document of such kind was produced in 1999 ( FL syllabi for Tallinn1999).

Background:

The beginning of educational innovation dates back to the Congress of Estonian teachers in 1987. Curriculum development for general comprehensive school started in 1989 already after the perestroika had reached the republic, a few years before independence was regained (1991). The first aspirations were directed towards changing the approach to social sciences, especially history and civics. At the same time attempts were made to preserve the broad encyclopaedic content of general education and high academic level of math and sciences. In 1992 and 1993 the first draft versions of NC for compulsory 9 grade schools and upper secondary schools (grades 10-12) were compiled and published by the Estonian Education Centre. However, during the years political preferences have been changing and so have different ideologies given rise to various and often incompatible approaches to curriculum development as well as discussions in media. Ideologies may develop in different directions. Some post-socialist countries have even manifested de-ideologisation of education, which seems to be partly true considering the rejection and loss of many universal ideas of education. Democratisation and humanisation of curricula , often related to humanitarisation (more time and space allotted to languages and social sciences) have been dedicated to substitution of the so-called “red ideology” with a democratic one. However, in many cases the concept itself has become obscure and the new slogan of democracy in education may also mean voluntarism in many fields of educational actions.

Aspirations towards democratic society and education have mostly been implemented by various procedures of decentralisation, in which usually new rights and responsibilities for decision-making closest to practical social life have not only been declared, but also shifted.

In case of Estonia in 1996 a new National Curriculum document was confirmed by the government, which offered a so-called general part with presentation of aims and expected competencies to be achieved and subject syllabi as frameworks specifying the content by broader themes in the cycles of three schoolyears(grades 1-3; 4-6; 7-9 and 10-12). This document created a compulsory basis for development of school curricula for practical teaching in general comprehensive schools as well as in vocational schools. Educational legislation today has specified especially large areas of responsibility for school leaders , who have to organise development of implementable curriculum for their schools and put it into practice with rather scanty resources of competence, time and finances.

Implementation of NC started in 1997/1998 in the first classes of each three-year cycle, so this schoolyear 1999/2000 is the final year of the process planned and the new NC should be in effect in full scale. As there is about 35 % Russian-medium schools and approximately the same amount of student population , the process of implementation of the NC takes place there with time shift of one year. Since 1998 National Examinations , based on the content of the new NC have been organised in all upper secondary schools in Estonia, and it has placed schools in a rather tricky position. We also have to remember the requirement that the schools are expected to meet local educational demands considering the needs of labour market and SEN children in the school catchment areas. The majority of compulsory and upper secondary schools are municipality schools (about 80%) and financed by voucher system, which gives specified finances based on the number of students, regardless their age, but considering the regional coefficient , which is somewhat higher for rural areas (1) and lower in towns (1). It means better financial opportunities for compulsory schools where there are many primary classes, as teaching in those costs less considering the smaller number of lessons (20-24) per week. Upper secondary education, on the contrary, is considerably more expensive as there are 35 lessons per week.

The schools have also gained some freedoms and liberties for organising their activities. They have to deliver minimal number of lessons as specified in NC for compulsory subjects, but they can select optional courses from a handbook of respective frameworks or create some on their own. Schools are also entitled to use more lessons for compulsory subjects , but they are not allowed to exceed the fixed number limits of lessons per week. All the decisions the schools can make depend on the circumstances and possibilities of a particular school, considering the socio-economic status of the municipality they belong to, teaching staff, support services, available info technologies and other resources.

At the same time the duty to follow the principles of common content and equal access to education have been declared in the NC, as it is considered proper for a democratic society.

Considering the fact that decentralisation of responsibilities has not been accompanied by decentralisation of resources, these tasks and problems cannot be solved by any school alone. Schools needed support on a broader administrative level which led to development of NC on regional level, to be more exact- development of NC considering its regional aspects.

The concept of regionality and its aspects of implementation.

As no official program for implementation of the NC has been designed, regional initiatives have proved most useful. The concept of regionality must be specified on two levels- that of selection of educational content and that of educational management. of program for In 1991-1996 two models, offering structures for compiling curriculum documents have been worked out, which could be used for selection of the content as well as designing a flexible process for learning considering different school environments. Both models have been designed bearing in mind the idea of equal access to general education for the broad masses of population.

Regional aspects in selecting the most appropriate content of general comprehensive education for the population means in practice monitoring of educational expectations and needs in the area and decision-making on relevant administrative level . It also means development of relevant subject syllabi, which would meet the needs of learners, parents and the labour market. For implementation of compiled and field-tested syllabi regional resources ( primarily finances and consultancy) for that must be made available for schools who have decided to offer particular subjects and create more flexible opportunities for learning for their students.

Regional aspects in selecting the content of education.

The constantly changing contemporary world has its greatest influence on the content of education. The key-word “flexibility” has caused heavy debates on what is actually worth learning and what could be considered meaningful in education at large(cf. Walsh 1993 etc.). Attempts have been made to specify dimensions of education, such as regional education, e.g. European dimension. (see. Green Paper and White Paper on Education and training), and other relevant specifications on a smaller scale of applicability. In 1996-1997 there were several interesting ideas expressed by Russian educationists, which deserve particular attention from the point of view of curriculum theory. V. I. Orlov has discussed content of information for learning (Orlov 1997), V.G.Razumovskij teaching and scientific cognition ( Razumovskij 1997) and A. Daniljuk analysed a school subject as an integrated system ( Daniljuk 1997). A. Darinskij has discussed regional component in the content of education (Darinskij 1996).

Consideration of regional aspects and opportunities for more effective organisation of content and learning processes is also well compatible with ideology of cognitive pluralism. This approach in comprehending societies and culture can also explain their diversity. Plurality of meaning is specified by the symbols of cultural context, by language in particular , which allows to represent or recover meanings in various forms it can be experienced . E. W. Eisner believes development of such ability to be the primary aim of schooling (Eisner1992:318), whereas N. Goodman goes still further and considers it to be foundational in the construction of our personal worlds (Goodman1978). Unavoidably, even unified contents of learning will acquire different personal meanings by individual learners. But how great will diversity become considering a great number of societies and still greater number of diverse contents and how can these diversities be managed in order to achieve social cohesion and balance. Probably, there have to be some stabilising mechanisms which can create commonly accepted values and skills to manage the diversity and to establish the borderline between acceptable and tolerable and unacceptable.

In the period of change it has become evident that people responsible for state systems of education should develop an improved ability to read and learn from theories, practices and proposals and to acquire a surer understanding of the cultural and philosophical roots of issues in curriculum design, which in its turn, could create educational options for managing the change on the level of an individual, group or nation.

Regional aspects for Tallinn and Harju district educational region have been specified by the following criteria, which can be used for more general purposes as well:

  • current demographic characteristics; in Estonia we have to consider the level of urbanisation and high population density with numerous ethnic minority groups represented in concentrated groups ;
  • geopolitical position of the state, which together with small number of representatives of Estonian ethnic group, has caused multilingualism during many centuries;
  • historical tradition of achievement oriented folk education;
  • experience of the XXth century general education based on a big number of subjects;
  • particular value of music and work-related art subjects;
  • functional load of subjects at upper secondary level, considering requirements for university and technical college entrance;
  • changing demands of labour market within the country;
  • position in international communication and social mobility of people.

For specification of the list of desired school subjects it means that languages, math and sciences, social studies with traditional distinction of history, civics and philosophy, geography as well as music, art and art history cannot be excluded from curricula . It would cause general dissatisfaction of parents and employers who expect their offspring as well as labour force be possibly well educated and provided with social skills enabling people to manage the change and new technologies of information society.

The research paper on the impact of implemented National Examinations and their role in students’ admission for proceeding their studies on the tertiary level in Estonian post-secondary educational institutions showed clearly that school subjects that deserve particular attention are math, English and Estonian. Functional load of all other subjects, including history, which is of particular meaning for transition states and democratic developments, is considerably lower. (Laanemets 1999) . However, the universities have to organise numerous additional tests and examinations in order to find out most suitable student candidates.

Considering the above mentioned and the existing network of foreign language specialised schools established in Tallinn in 1960-ies (10 out of about 80) , it was necessary to keep those schools functioning after the new NC was adopted in 1996. In 1998/1999 a project was carried out during which the subject syllabi of those schools became specified. In addition to general language courses , students in all those schools also have the opportunity to take courses of literature and country study, business language course, Tallinn guide course and translation-interpretation course. These courses are offered as optional subjects primarily with the aim to enrich students cultural horizons and offer them opportunities to acquire better communication skills for various purposes. These specifications of learning contents have proved useful for long years and many a graduates of those schools have become architects of new society, and we strongly believe that the role of learning several foreign languages is more promising , especially considering the European dimensions of education.

Also art subjects and work related subjects in regional curricula deserve attention. Music education has very long traditions , high level art education could be more attributed to developments in the XXth century. In addition to those traditions of handicrafts for boys and girls have been preserved. Handicraft for girls has been offering mostly creative skills for knitting, crocheting and embroidering; for boys it offered knowledge and skills for woodwork and constructive - technological knowledge and skills. When Soviet programs mostly were dedicated to training of working skills demanding exactness and speed for work at conveyer belts (e.g. sewing for girls or boys joining details together ), the work education in Estonia was different. The syllabi for boys’ woodwork, for instance were following the educational approach of the Danish educationist John Karell and for girls it was developed with the aim to preserve folk art of handicrafts. Art education and work related handicrafts have to be also considered important on psychological reasons as they offer opportunities to develop students’ co-ordination and mental balance in addition to development of their artistic tastes

and manual skills. These school subjects are believed to have a particular impact on students’ development in primary and lower secondary schools. In Tallinn there are also schools, which have specialised on arts.

A special area of educational developments are Russian -medium schools in Estonia and in Tallinn and Harju district around the capital in particular. Russian -medium schools have good academic traditions of teaching maths and sciences, as these enjoyed in the Soviet time a special attention being labelled as strategic subjects, considered important for the army and development of defence potential of the empire. Math happens to be the only subject in the NC where syllabi on two levels (ordinary and academic or broad and narrow math) have been specified.