In 2014 the Icelandic government issued a reform that reduced the time of all matriculation examination programs (hereafter academic programs) from four years to three. The reform was influenced by international, neo-liberal trends in education policy emphasising increased school efficiency, education system accountability and international comparison (Ragnarsdóttir, 2018). The main objectives of the reform were to combat low completion rates and student drop-out of upper secondary education system as well as making it comparable to those of Europe. The reform represented fundamental changes in the Icelandic education system. However not much is known about its consequences in terms of its impact on the content of the academic programs.

Before the implementation of the reform, Icelandic upper secondary education had undergone some drastic organizational reforms in 2008–2012 which were influenced by European-wide policy trends of increased school autonomy (Altrichter, Heinrich & Soukup-Altrichter, 2014; Daun, 2007; Karstanje, 1999). Curriculum-making for the academic programs had until then taken place within the MoESC and the difference between individual academic programs was very limited (Ragnarsdóttir & Jónasson, 2020), but subsequently delegated to individual schools. The reform in 2014 was therefore enacted within a policy environment of decentralized curriculum making and consequently carried out differently in different upper secondary schools. Individual schools decided (within the framework of the National Curriculum Guide) on which subjects were taken out and which remained in the new academic program curriculum. The enactment was neither centrally organised nor monitored by education authorities (Ragnarsdóttir, 2018, 2021). With the enactment of the policy of decentralized curriculum the number and variability of the academic programs increased drastically, from four to around 150, even though their exact variability is largely unknown.

The aim of the study was to map out and critically study the impact of the reform on the curriculum content of academic programs, including mandatory, advanced, and elective courses. The intended and unintended consequences and wider implications of the reform in terms of the curriculum content of the academic programs were explored in the study, using theories on critical policy analysis (Braun, Ball, Maguire & Hoskins, 2011; Ball, Maguire & Braun, 2012). Bernstein’s code theory (classification and framing) provided a critical angle to the categorisation and analysis of the curricula content (Bernstein, 2000). The Icelandic upper secondary education curriculum provides an interesting case for studying the processes and effects of implementation and enactment of education policy within a complex environment of contrasting and even contradicting policies in circulation. Furthermore, it provides a particularly clear example for understanding what role factors such as subject hierarchies, marketisation, and formula funding play in an education system of decentralised curriculum-making as the curriculum was decentralised at almost the same time as upper secondary schools were made to reduce the duration of academic programs by 25%. Education policy of increased school autonomy and decentralised curriculum making have been prevalent in Europe for the past decades (Altrichter, Heinrich & Soukup-Altrichter, 2014; Daun, 2007). The study therefore will provide valuable information for further research in the field of European education policy research.

All information on curricula in Icelandic upper secondary education is maintained in a database by the Directorate of Education (n.d.). This includes the names and descriptions of all academic programmes in upper secondary education as well as a list and short description of all mandatory and advanced courses pertaining to each academic program. Content analysis was used for categorising and analysing information from the database for confirmed curricula (Bauer, 2000). This was done in order to gain an overview of how the reform that reduced the length of the academic programs of upper secondary education was enacted within upper secondary education. By gaining this overview it became possible to compare the currently available academic programs with their older counterparts both in terms of general characteristics and subject emphasis.

The results of the study indicate that the implementation of the education reform that reduced the time of the academic programs has counteracted the aims of the education policy of decentralised curriculum-making in Icelandic upper secondary education. The aim of decentralising curriculum-making was, broadly speaking to increase the diversity of available studies in upper secondary education. Even though the academic programs have increased from four to around 150, their internal differences do not seem to reflect an equal increase in content diversity. On the contrary, the results of the study indicate that the variability of the available academic studies has diminished. Our findings also indicate that the reform enactment has had differential effects on different academic subjects. Some subjects which were part of mandatory subjects of the academic curriculum before the implementation of the reform seem to have disappeared while other academic subjects have gone from being mandatory to being elective subjects. Our previous research suggests that the reforms enactment negatively affected student’s preparedness for higher education especially in those subjects that have greatly been affected by the reform’s enactment. Our results indicate that marketisation and formula funding have greatly impacted curriculum-making both in terms of availability of studies and in some cases their content. The University level also seems to have a strong influence on the upper secondary curriculum through its entrance requirements and seems to reinforce to a stronger degree the traditional subject hierarchy (Bleazby, 2015; Deng, 2013; Ragnarsdóttir & Jónasson, 2020).

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