Processes of Changes in Pre-School Curriculum: Centralisation – Radical Decentralisation – Combination of Centralisation and Decentralisation Processes
Author(s):
Ona Monkeviciene (submitting) Marija Joniliene (presenting) Kristina Stankeviciene
Conference:
ECER 2013
Network:
03. Curriculum Innovation
Format:
Paper

Session Information

03 SES 08 B, Early Childhood Education Curriculum

Paper Session

Time:
2013-09-12
09:00-10:30
Room:
D-401
Chair:
Uwe Hameyer

Contribution

Situation of pre-school curriculum development and implementation: Lithuanian case.

Prior to 2007 the pre-school curriculum was developed and implemented in a centralised way. The authorities of pre-school education institutions followed national curricular of pre-school education, which provided for goals, objectives, principles, values of pre-school education, specific content of children’s education, strategies of its implementation and peculiarities of educative environment. During the period of 2005-2007 it was decided to completely decentralize pre-school curriculum development and its implementation. The country did not provide any national guidelines containing the goal, objectives, principles, values, outcomes of children’s education. From 2007 to 2012 pre-school education institutions were implementing curricular developed in their institutions.

The problem of the research. Under such obvious changes, theoretical and empiric evaluation of benefit and problems of fast transition from fully centralized to completely decentralised pre-school education curriculum and that of needs of participants in these processes and trends of new political  decisions acquired utmost importance.

Theoretical substantiation of decentralisation model. The analysis of features of decentralisation of pre-school education curriculum in the country reveals radical decentralisation (Bodine F.E., 2005), i.e., education institutions are provided with full autonomy regarding pre-school  education curriculum and complete responsibility for outcomes of children’s education. Minimal regulation at national level is absent and minimal regulation is only available at the level of establisher of an educational institution. Decisions regarding decentralisation of pre-school education curriculum management were of political nature: education policy makers at national level decided to delegate function of pre-school education curriculum development and implementation to educational institutions (Becerra L.A.M.,2012). The was no ‘bottom–up’ need  for that (Rado P., 2001; McGinn N., Welsh T., 1999; Lopez M.J.G., 2006); on the contrary, a strong resistance was felt ‘from the bottom’. The formed model for management of pre-school education curriculum may be referred to as a local administrative-professional one because the quality of curriculum depends on efficiency of activities of administration staff and professionalism of teachers in educational institutions (Baltušnikienė J., 2009; Zhu J., 2012).  Following the optimal model for systemic reform in post-communist models suggested by P. Rado (2001) and other models (Pollard A., 2008; Kwon Y-I., 2002; Urbanovič J., 2011), the sub-system of pre-school education curriculum management aimed to substantially solve several strategic objectives: decetralisation and liberalisation, new concept of quality, equal opportunities for education and accessibility of (self-)education. The presentation provides the scheme and decription of model for decentralisaton of pre-school  education curriculum. All this influenced the quality of pre-school education curricular.

The research questions:

What are positive and negative effects of transition from centralisation to radical decentralisation on the quality of pre-school education curriculum?

What most important needs of pre-school education curricular developers emerged in the process of decentralisation and what changes occurred in them over 5 years?

What are possible innovative decisions at national level, which do not encourage standardisation of pre-school education curriculum and children’s achievements?

The goal of the research: to identify impact of radical decentralisation on quality of pre-school education curriculum and participants in the processes of decentralisation.

Method

Striving for evaluation of effect of transition from centralisation to radical decentralisation on the quality of pre-school education curriculum, during the period of 2007-2012 three surveys were carried out: ‘The variety of pre-school education’ (2008); ‘The quality of pre-school and pre-primary education curricular and its their implementation’ (2009); ‘The compliance of pre-school, pre-primary and primary education curricular’ (2012). The range of their research problems also embraced the problem of quality of pre-school education curriculum. The objectives of the research: 1. to reveal impact of transition from centralisation to complete decentralization on quality of pre-school curriculum. 2. to reveal problems emerging while developing and implementing pre-school education curriculum under conditions of radical decentralisation. 3. to identify needs of teachers, who develop and implement pre-school education curriculum, and those of authorities of pre-school education institutions. 4. to reveal innovations of improvement of pre-school education curriculum, which allow joining children’s achievements at national level into specific models. The research methods: content analysis of pre-school education curricular (12 programmes), focus group method (36 pre-school teachers, 16 teachers – curricular developers, 18 representatives of administration of educational institutions), teachers’ survey (221 and 501), survey of authorities of educational institutions (230).

Expected Outcomes

The presentation discusses the processes of transition to complete decentralisation, emerging challenges and efficient ways of providing professional support to teachers. Results of positive impact of complete decentralisation on quality of pre-school education curriculum are discussed: curricular were better adapted to the needs and abilities of children from a particular education institution; the understanding of education quality as an agreement among participants of education process was enhanced; curricular models, oriented to development of child’s competences started to prevail, etc. The essential problems of quality of pre-school education curriculum have been identified: pre-school education curricular developed in separate pre-school institutions differ in their quality; evaluation of children’s achievements are weakly linked to their intended learning outcomes, etc. The needs of teachers, who develop and implement pre-school education curricular have been revealed: over five years the needs of teachers to have national guidelines of pre-school education was observed, etc. The presentation introduces a new political decision to prepare the national descriptor of children’s achievements of innovative structure, which will enable pre-school education institutions to strive for the same national outcomes through development of original models for children’s achievements that meet the curriculum of their educational institution.

References

1. Baltušnikienė J. (2009). Viešojo valdymo sistemos decentralizacija: turinys, pranašumai ir trūkumai. Viešoji politika ir administravimas. No. 27. 2. Becerra L.A.M. (2012). The Results in the Provision of Public Education under Different Decentralized Contexts: the Colombian Case. The Journal of Developing Areas. Volume 46, No. 2. 3. Bodine F.E. (2005). Radical Decentralization and the Role of Community in Polish Educational Reform. European Education, vol. 37, No. 1. 4. Handbook for Decentralized Education Planning. (2005). UNESCO. 5. Kwon Y-I. (2002). Changing Curriculum for Early Childhood Education in England. Early Childhood Research & Practice, Volume 4, No.2. Lopez M.J.G. (2006). Towards Decentralized and Goal-Oriented Models of Institutional Resource Allocation: The Spanish case. Higher Education. 51(4): 589-617. Springer. 6. McGinn N., Welsh T. (1999). Decentralization of Education: why, when, what and how? Paris: UNESCO/international Institute for Education Planing. 7. Metodinės rekomendacijos ikimokyklinio ugdymo programai rengti. (2006). Vilnius: švietimo aprūpinimo centras. 8. Monkevičienė O., Jonilienė M., K.Stankevičienė ir kt. (2008). Ikimokyklinio ugdymo įvairovė: esama situacija ir visuomenės lūkesčiai. Galutinė mokslinė ataskaita (Research report). http://www.smm.lt/svietimo_bukle/docs/tyrimai/sb/VPU-atask-paslaug-ivairove.pdf 9. Monkevičienė O., Jonilienė M., Stankevičienė K.ir kt. (2009). Ikimokyklinio, priešmokyklinio ugdymo turinio ir jo įgyvendinimo kokybė. (Research report). http://www.upc.smm.lt/projektai/pletra/Tyrimai/VPU%20tyrimo%20ataskaita/Ikimokyklinio,%20priesmokyklinio%20ugdymo%20turinio%20ir%20jo%20%20igyvendinimo%20kokybes%20analize%20Tyrimo%20ataskaita%202009%2011%2005.pdf 10. Monkevičienė O., Žemgulienė A., Stankevičienė K. ir kt. (2012). Ikimokyklinio, priešmokyklinio ir pradinio ugdymo turinio programų dermės tyrimo ataskaita. (Research report). http://www.ikimokyklinis.lt/uploads/files/dir574/dir28/dir1/15_0.php 11. Pollard A. with Anderson J., Swaffield S., Swann M. etc. (2008). Reflective Teaching. London, Continuum. 12. Pre-school in transition. (2004). A National Evaluation of the Swedish Pre-School. Sweden: Skolverket. 13. Rado P. (2001). Transition in Education. Policy Making and the key Educationnal Policy Areas in Central-European and Baltic Countries. Budapest: Open society institute. 14. Švietimo decentralizacija ir savivaldybių funkcijos. (2012). Informacinis leidinys “Švietimo naujovės” No. 1(312). Vilnius: ŠMM Švietimo aprūpinimo centras. 15. Urbanovič J. (2011). Mokyklos autonomijos valdymo modelis. Doctoral thesis. Mykolo Romerio universitetas. http://jolanta.home.mruni.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/J_Urbanovic_disertacija.pdf 16. Zhu J. CurriculumImplementation Challenges and Strategies in China. http://www.oecd.org/edu/preschoolandschool/46745906.pdf

Author Information

Ona Monkeviciene (submitting)
Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences
Vilnius
Marija Joniliene (presenting)
Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences
Vilnius
Kristina Stankeviciene
Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences
Department of Early Childhood Studies
Vilnius

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