Building a strong and prosperous nation on the basis of a new national curriculum
The South Sudan national curriculum should emphasis more on Cognitive, Affective and Psycho motor domains since they are the basis of learning.
By Ustaz Mabior Rioc Manyang, Juba, South Sudan
December 4, 2015 (SSB) — Building a strong and independent nation on the basis of the new national curriculum is a collective responsibility of every member in the society. When I talk about nation building, I mean designing a comprehensive and education-centered curriculum as it was passed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology three months ago. This was meant to render quality education to all south Sudanese who have been subjected to illiteracy during the Sudan civil wars. Here, let me elaborate more on curriculum design, development and assessment as they are central to teaching and learning in the classroom. The curriculum should consider both the cognitive, affective and the psychomotor domains as they are the strong basis of learning.
The school based-curriculum is a content and knowledge-based material that is designed by education system of any country with a purpose of delivering the full education satisfaction to the general public. The curriculum changes should be those expected by the educators involved in the teaching and learning process as well as the views of the general public about the delivery of quality and relevant education. A curriculum should include a list of subjects and experiences offered by any school to the learners as far as eradication of illiteracy is concerned. As a teacher, you are aware that a school curriculum is a program of selected content and learning experiences offered by a school and capable of either modifying or changing learner’s behaviors. Many teachers of today are not teachers by profession but found their way to teaching because of the prevailing unemployment conditions. However, teaching is a unique profession that requires principles of teaching so as to deliver content and material professionally to the clients.
The curriculum is designed to meet the national education aims of the country and this puts a school to serve the needs of the child. All that is done by the school should be for the good of the child and that a teacher should not lose sight of this fact because a curriculum is designed to meet the education needs of the community so as to improve the lives of the learners. It is therefore, becomes the responsibility of the school to develop the capacity of the learner, through instilling in the learner the manipulative skills, attitudes and value systems of education. If the school fulfils these three responsibilities, a learner will be able to display new behaviors and attitudes which are all beneficial to the society and the country as a whole. A school curriculum should help all learners to develop their mental capacity, acquire manipulative or technical skills and develop their emotional state
In addition to national goals, the school curriculum is influenced greatly by the mental, physical and emotional requirements of the child. The school curriculum developers look at the child’s level of development and maturity. The juniors should be given what they can handle in terms of depth and quantity and the seniors should also be given what they can handle according to their capacity. For example, in science at the primary level, there is more concern with the systems and processes that affect the learner’s life without giving the principles and theories behind them. At higher levels, the physical, chemical and biological systems and processes are described in terms of the principles and theories that explain them. The level of complexity increases as the mental capacity of the learner develops. Learning experiences increase in intensity and complexity with increased manipulative skills which are all about psychomotor domains.
Thus the physical condition of the learners also influences the selection of subjects and experiences. Through this way, the learners of all works of life are brought on board and they are aware of what they should and shouldn’t learn. The Republic of South Sudan is a gifted nation with talented and creative children who will soon beat their counterparts in the neighboring countries if the education system is improved. In almost East African Countries, some of South Sudanese Students are the ones leading in the performance of the school despite the fact that most of them went to school when they are already grown up ladies and gentlemen. For instance, they are admitted in Primary one, then next year they turn out to be even brighter than the teacher and they want to teach the teacher, hence the school administration has nothing to do but allow them skip the class to next where they also become brilliant and more intelligent.
The School Environment is also an important issue in the design of a curriculum. This is because the curriculum planners should consider what the environment could offer to the learner and how the environment can be exploited to facilitate the teaching and learning process. For example, if the school is located in a temperate region, you might think of offering agricultural farming around the school premises or outside the school surrounding which is conducive for agricultural activities. You should also note that the designer of a school curriculum should consider the system and strategy for the evaluation of the curriculum. Practical assessments for certain subjects such as chemistry require special equipment and apparatus that the school might not be able to afford. Learners might be frustrated if they follow a course of study for which they were not assessed, because where there is no assessment, there is no certification.
In addition, the instructors/teaching teaching these subjects may not take them seriously and therefore, without commitment from both the teacher and the learners, teaching these subjects wastes time and money. It would also not make much sense to offer a subject in a trade that requires industrial testing equipment if the school could not expose the learners to the same environment and conditions found in industry. These examples stress the need to consider evaluation seriously in the learning institutions as far as performance of the students is concerned. Connected to this is that after the teacher has sequenced the topics, outlined the concepts, specified the learning objectives, identified activities and materials to be used and taught the lesson, it is important to determine whether the instructional and learning intentions have been met. The teacher needs to prepare some means of evaluating materials, learners and methods used in teaching. Evaluation strategies should be specified when the teacher is drafting the scheme of work. Instruments in the form of self-evaluations, self-assessments and practice activities should be prepared. Normally these are referred to as exercises, homework and tests.
In the scheme of work, the teacher should indicate when each type of assessment is given. Guided by the objectives given, it should be easy to make these tests and exercises by basing them on intended outcomes. A record of what happens during teaching should be written under the assessment and evaluation column in the scheme book. Continuous assessment gives the teacher a clear picture of the progress the learners are making. This is very important in teaching so as teacher can be able to adjust in the areas of weaknesses and strengths. However, method of evaluation indicates the means and strategies of evaluation, the skills to be evaluated and the number of test papers, including the nature of the papers. While formats are given in syllabuses, they normally differ from subject to subject and the scheming of a teacher. When a school receives the syllabus, the document is interpreted and divided into topics to be taught each term. The grouping of these topics depends on the seasonal arrangements of the academic year. Nevertheless, certain topics are best taught during wet or dry seasons because the weather always determines the term in which certain topics are taught. For example, it is most effective to teach about floods during the rainy season and about photosynthesis in biology when the leaves are green.
Lesson plan, scheme of work and the objectives of the lesson.
Once the school syllabus is ready, each teacher will be asked to draft a scheme of work where he or she will be able to extract his daily lesson(s) from it. Generally a scheme is a breakdown of topics into teaching units that are sequentially arranged to facilitate teaching. There are different formats used, depending on the conventions in each school, but all generally include the date, topic, objectives, activities, resources to be used and assignments and evaluation, both general and individual. In the same vein, objectives generally are written in terms of the learner’s performance or behavior. According to (Mager, 1992), an objective is defined as intent communicated by a statement describing a proposed change in the learner. An objective is a statement of what the learner will do as an outcome of instruction and a statement of change in the behavior of the learner as a result of the instruction or training. Learning objectives may be classified as terminal or enabling. Terminal objectives are statements of intent regarding the learner’s achievement at the conclusion of a unit of instruction. Such statements are derived from the content of the unit.
Enabling objectives on the other hands are statements of intent that make it possible for the learner to arrive at the terminal behavior. In other words, an enabling objective is a sub-terminal objective. Also note that learning objectives must be ‘SMART. That is to say the objectives must be specific, measurable, achievable/attainable, realistic or result-oriented and time framed (SMART). Objectives are specified in their application because: they enable the teacher to select learning materials and teaching methods, they guide the teacher in creating the learning environment in which objectives can be accomplished, and they show learners what is expected of them at the end of the lesson or a course.
School Timetable in the curriculum
It is very important for the teachers and the learners to have knowledge in the timetable and its importance which can help in the smooth running of the school throughout the term. This will assist the teachers to prepare their scheme of work and lesson plans on time so as to avoid inconveniences or interruptions of their scheduled lessons. However, a timetable is a schedule of events that guides school activities throughout the day, week, term or year. For each activity, a timetable generally specifies a starting time and an ending time. In some cases, it indicates who is involved and how the activity will be conducted. At school, there is a master timetable that is prepared by the head and deputy. This timetable shows when the school day begins and ends. It shows the activities for each day. It further shows which teacher will teach which subject to which class, on what day and at what times.
From the master timetable, each department prepares the timetable that should be followed by all the members of the department. This is called a department timetable. Each teacher will note his or her own class and subject times from the department timetable and create a class timetable or individual timetable. Generally the shortest duration on the timetable is called a period. The length of a teaching period varies from school to school, although the range is normally between 45minutes to one hour. However, there are schools that use blocks instead of periods. A block is used at the tertiary level more than in high schools because the time span is generally an hour or more. Blocks of periods can also be used to teach science, language, literature and practical subjects when more than one period is needed. For example, in my former University, (St. Lawrence University) one lecture runs for three hours compared to University of Juba in which a lecture runs for 2-3 hours. This is mainly for matured students who can handle a greater load with ease compared to primary or secondary students in which their lessons should run for 45 minutes or one hour.
In conclusion therefore, the recently adopted comprehensive National curriculum is really a pride to our National Ministry of Education, Science and Technology in particular and South Sudan in general. It is through the standard curriculum that guarantees relevant and quality education in the nation. The cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains should consider the implications of the national aims of education as far as reduction of illiteracy and the improvement of education system in South Sudan is concerned. Vote of thanks to our Minster of Education, Science and Technology and his Deputy as well as the international supporting donors in the education sector for the great work they are doing to our nation.
The writer is a south Sudanese and a graduate with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Education majoring in Geography and History at St. Lawrence University, Kampala Uganda. He can be reached on mabiorrioc@yahoo.com
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