Optimising Curricular Capacity Development Processes For Enhanced Sustainable Reforms In International Development Cooperation
Author(s):
Corine Vis (presenting / submitting) Jan Berkvens Nienke M. Nieveen Wilmad Kuiper
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
03. Curriculum Innovation
Format:
Paper

Session Information

03 SES 05, Curriculum Development: Roles of Teachers and Other Actors

Paper Session

Time:
2016-08-24
13:30-15:00
Room:
NM-A106
Chair:
Jan van den Akker

Contribution

Curriculum is back on the educational agenda. The 4th goal on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (UNDP 2015), with a strong focus on educational quality raises the need for curricular capacity strengthening. However, the necessity and importance of strengthening such capacities is often not aligned accordingly. Post-2015 discussions identified several gaps, such as a too narrow, one-size-fits-all approach to education; inadequate attention to human capital and resource constraints, including an inadequate focus on teachers as key agents for quality education (UNESCO & UNICEF, 2013). Many curriculum development interventions, where local partners in developing countries work together with international organisations lack sustainable outcomes, often due to strategies with a too narrow focus. Knowledge regarding systemic curriculum development is needed to achieve more sustainable educational and curricular outcomes. Such a comprehensive perspective on curriculum does not only require curriculum knowledge, but also knowledge regarding professional development of (future) teachers, education managers, the inspectorate, etc., and the indispensible inclusion of relevant stakeholders. This knowledge is often lacking or weak, and repeatedly leads to weak reforms and disappointing results. A more solid and systemic curricular capacity development knowledge base could help in shaping international initiatives supporting curriculum development. The Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO and The Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development (SLO) initiated research into enhanced sustainable curriculum development, in order to propose approaches for more successful curriculum reform interventions. The research focuses on curriculum development in international development cooperation and aims to answer the question how curriculum development processes can be optimised in order to strengthen curricular capacity of stakeholders and to enhance the sustainability of curriculum reforms, and investigates which design principles should underlie such trajectories.

The research consists of three stages: 1: mapping and articulating the existing academic and professional knowledge base regarding curricular capacity development efforts in such contexts, 2: relating the knowledge base to curricular reforms and capacity development practice in selected countries and 3: identifying implications for international development cooperation and public policy. The first stage comprised a literature and context analysis, which focused on the identification of fundamental principles for increased sustainability in international development cooperation. It put the general developments and paradigms in this sector from World War II until now under scrutiny to learn more about underlying reasons for success and failure, and to draft potential design principles for enhanced sustainability of curriculum reforms. The subsequent context analysis shifted the focus towards the operational level by drawing a more specific picture of contemporary curriculum development and educational practice in the sector. The findings of the whole analysis are synthesised into a foundation for sustainable curricular capacity development (CCD), consisting of five pillars, including a number of corresponding recommendations. This foundation serves as a set of design principles (by analogy with the formula of Van den Akker, 2013) for CCD-processes, and is presented to a number of experts at several stages during its development, including at previous ECER conferences. This theory is now being validated in three case studies in Africa and the Caribbean. In those three contexts, different projects with different scope, duration, type of funding are run, ranging from interventions that are entirely marked by curriculum development, or that include at least a curriculum development component. This paper presents the outcomes of this case study research, including the design principles.  

Method

For this research an educational design research (EDR) approach is adopted. This research-informed approach combines three related goals: optimisation of curricular interventions and products; development of curriculum design principles and strengthening the existing knowledge base; and professional development of all stakeholders involved (Van den Akker, 2010). EDR could be characterised as an interactive approach with integrated research activities that feed the process both forward and back. A thorough context and curriculum analysis at the beginning of the trajectory, built-in research, frequent formative evaluation and the inclusion of relevant stakeholders contributes significantly to the three aforementioned goals of EDR. The primary research of the first stage consisted of a literature and context analysis. The literature analysis focused on capacity development in international development cooperation, including a broad number of documents issued by influential and leading international initiatives, institutions and organisations that determine global paradigms. The review pointed out that the overall capacity of many countries is limited, which is regarded to be one of the main obstacles for not reaching globally set targets, including in education. For the context analysis, the focus was shifted towards educational capacity development. Representatives of five international agencies that support educational capacity development developing countries were interviewed, and in addition, three recent relevant international curricular capacity development projects (both short term and long term) carried out by SLO were analysed. All case studies contained an underlying research strand and were evaluated at several points in time. For the second stage of the research, a case study strategy (Yin, 2003) was adopted. The design principles developed during stage one were validated during three curriculum capacity development interventions in Southern Africa, the Caribbean and Eastern Africa. For each case study, multiple and complementary sources of evidence were studied and/or consulted, including project documentation; relevant policy documents; additional literature reviews; observations; email correspondence and meetings. In addition, semi-structured interviews and validation interviews were held with a number of relevant stakeholders per case study. The analytical framework for this research consists of the pillars for curricular capacity development as developed during stage 1; the quality criteria for curriculum (relevance, consistency, practicality, effectiveness, sustainability and scalability) by Nieveen et al. (1999, 2009); Guskey’s (2000) five levels of professional development, possibilities for scalability (Coburn, 2003) and qualitative data analysis (Miles, Huberman & Saldaña, 2014).

Expected Outcomes

The outcomes of the literature and context analysis resulted in the formulation of five interrelated pillars for sustainable capacity development: ownership & harmonisation; levels of capacity; partnership through dialogue; collaborative learning; and strategic thinking & action. Each principle comes with a number of corresponding recommendations. The pillars and recommendations are being applied to and validated during three curriculum development interventions in Southern Africa, Eastern Africa, and the Caribbean. The processes of these interventions are described and analysed through the pillars. The first findings of the case study research show that a number of common, fundamental project characteristics - funding, scope, duration, and level of accountability – have an influence on how the pillars take shape. For example, funding mechanisms with a strong focus on accountability towards the funder severely limited room for participation, learning and ownership. The opposite was shown in another context, where the funder imposed less stringent demands at outcome level. This allowed more room for participation, learning and strengthening of the other pillars, which in turn was beneficial for the eventual curricular products that were developed. The data suggest that the probability of sustainability decreases when room for collaborative learning and curricular capacity development is being restricted, which strengthens the hypothesis that interventions that are firmly based on the pillars are likely to generate more sustainable results. Subsequently, the validated pillars and recommendations will be incorporated into a conceptual framework for curricular guidance: a practical framework that guides stakeholders through the curriculum development process in a systemic and systematic, but non-prescriptive way, along the core activities of curriculum development. The outcomes of stage two, including the framework, are presented in this paper.

References

Akker, J. van den (2013). Curricular Development Research as a specimen of Educational Design Research. In: T. Plomp and N. Nieveen (Eds.). Educational Design Research (pp. 53-70). Enschede: SLO. Akker, J. van den (2010). Building Bridges: how research may improve curriculum policies and classroom practices. Beyond Lisbon 2010: perspectives from research and development for education policy in Europe. Berkshire: The National Foundation for Educational Research. Coburn, C.E. (2003). Rethinking Scale: Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change. Educational Researcher, Vol. 32, No. 6, pp. 3–12. Sage Publications. Guskey, T.R. (2000). Evaluating professional development. California: Corwin Press. Miles, Matthew B., Huberman, A. Michael. & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: a methods source book. Third edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Nieveen, N.M. (1999). Prototyping to reach product quality. In J. van den Akker, R. Branch, K. Gustavson, N. Nieveen, & Tj. Plomp (Eds.) Design approaches and tools in education and training (pp. 125-136). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Nieveen, N.M. (2009). Formative evaluation in educational design research. In Tj. Plomp & N. Nieveen (Eds.), An introduction to educational design research (pp. 89-101). Enschede: SLO. UNDP. (2015). United Nations Development Programme: Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 4: Quality Education. Accessed on 20 November 2015 on: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview/post-2015-development-agenda/goal-4.html UNESCO/UNICEF. (2013). Envisioning education in the post-2015 development agenda: thematic consultation on education in the post-2015 development agenda. In: Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43:6 (pp 791-799). London/New York: Routledge. Yin, R.K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Author Information

Corine Vis (presenting / submitting)
Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development
Research and Consultancy
Enschede
Jan Berkvens
The Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development (SLO)
Research and consultancy
Enschede
Nienke M. Nieveen
SLO Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development
Research and Consultancy
Enschede
Wilmad Kuiper
SLO
Enschede

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