{"id":98494,"date":"2020-01-31T15:36:18","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T22:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98494"},"modified":"2020-01-31T15:36:18","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T22:36:18","slug":"curriculum-and-teaching-reforms-essential-to-sri-lanka-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/31\/curriculum-and-teaching-reforms-essential-to-sri-lanka-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"CURRICULUM AND TEACHING REFORMS ESSENTIAL TO SRI LANKA PART 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Curriculum\nand Teaching reforms would be the most considerable area in the education\nreforms process of Sri Lanka and the quality of education will be dependent on\nthe success of the curriculum and teaching process. This is the secrecy that\nthe success of education in Western countries.&nbsp;\nParents of Sri Lanka wish to send kids for education to Western\ncountries as the expectations of them could not be achieved in the current\neducation system and economic opportunities in Sri Lanka too limited for\neducated youth the education has not organized to relate with economic plans.\nThe curriculum and teaching have not disposed to support economic development.\nIt needs to understand that education and economic development are variable\nwith higher positive correlation. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If\nSri Lanka\u2019s education system well organized to achieve the best quality and\nattract foreigners to education it is proved that no point sending kids\noverseas for education.&nbsp; The current\npractice in Sri Lanka shows that sending kids for education in overseas\ngenerate cost to country absorbing country\u2019s foreign exchange and finally\neducated and trained people sending to developed countries out of the cost of\nSri Lanka. Indirectly this environment polarizes the society as foreign\neducated people and locally educated people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes,\nkids in Western countries will come to Sri Lanka for education if the quality\nof education, the education system supports the expectation of foreigners, the\ncost of education substantially lesser than the Western countries. The truth is\nthat Sri Lanka has not been to practically maintained all these factors as the\nfiscal capacity of the country is limited. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\nare arguments among education experts in Western countries about their\neducation policies. Either Sri Lankans or many people in overseas have no idea\nabout this arena and blindly believe that the best education system exists in\nthe West.&nbsp; The major reason to this\nperception is the offer of education is based on research and many education\nphilosophers such as John Dewey and Charles Sanders Pierce contributed\nphilosophical insights to change the education practice in the West.&nbsp; Education policy makers in Sri Lanka are\nneither highly regarded philosophers nor they are good researchers in the field\nbut political supporters of the ruling government and they have no good\nexperience to determine curriculum and teaching applicable to the country. What\nkind of education should be gained by kids is based on individual preference\nand ambition, which are concerned with many factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When\nit talks about education the most popular term that goes along with the word\neducation is the curriculum. No matter which context of education talking about\ncurriculum is a vital term to education.&nbsp;\nIt clearly seems that no education exists without organized curriculum\nin the modern era. When parents are selecting a school for kids, when matured\nstudents selecting a program in a TVET institution or in a university the\npriority is to investigate or research what sort of curriculum is being offered\nby the school or TVET institution or the university for educational\nprograms.&nbsp; Sometimes, it has a feeling\nthat a curriculum is an ever-emphasized term in schools or in society.&nbsp; Now workplaces also concern about the\ncurriculum learned at schools by employees.&nbsp;\nTherefore, it is very clear that the curriculum has a different meaning\nto different people or organizations and curriculum is the strongest source of\nknowledge and skills to learners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\ncurriculum would be specialized education or training or a source of education\nand the way of gaining education to different people.&nbsp; The traditional school system in Sri Lanka,\ncurriculum for exams such as G.C.E. (Ordinary Level) and G.C.E. (Advance Level)\nhad a homogeneous choice in nature and it created issues in the dynamic world\nas kids had not been supported by school\u2019s curriculum to achieve life\nexpectations such as finding a job. The school administration has not authority\nto develop school curriculum and the authority of tertiary institutions also\nvery limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curriculum\nand teaching give impression that it is over-emphasis area in education, the\ntruth regarding education in Sri Lanka, it is less accentuated area in\neducation and after independence many attempts made for changes, but they were\nnot successful achieving expectations of stakeholders. The contributing factor\nfor the failure was lack of experience in how to change curriculum and lack of\nunderstanding the strategies that should be used in a complex society for\ncurriculum developments, presentation and teaching methods used in schools\nillustrating in the national curriculum documents.&nbsp; In addition to policy in the destitution of\nknowledge and practical skills gaining from curriculum and teaching, the\nfailure of reforms also contributed to weak curriculum and teaching in Sri\nLanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reformists\ndid not educate the public on the essential changes and they haven\u2019t had\neffective alternative strategies if the reform process would turn to a fiasco\nand what would be remedial actions to correct mistakes, were not pre-planned by\npolicy makers.&nbsp; This means that there was\nnot a successful monitoring process to identify weaknesses in policy\nimplementation in the education field. When I was in primary school, I can\nremember curriculum and teaching methods began to change and give some values\nto TVET curriculum in Primary education under leadership of Minister\nIrriagolla, but such a positive change was abandoned as the left politics\nattempted to use positive changes to discreet it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Curriculum\nand teaching are interrelated features in education and practically working\ntogether. The success of the curriculum would be achieved on the effectiveness\nof teaching methods that apply to teach the curriculum in schools. Ornstein and\nHunskins (1988) expressed that curriculum as a field of study is elusive and\nfragmentary and what it is supposed to entail is open to a good deal of debate\nand even misunderstanding.\u201d Therefore, it is required to clearly understand the\nmeaning of curriculum within the context of education level or area.&nbsp; Ornstein and Hunskins (1988) further\nexpressed that curriculum approach reflects a holistic position encompassing\nthe foundation of curriculum (the philosophy, view of history, view of\npsychology, learning theories and view of social issues), domain of curriculum\n(Common and Important knowledge within the field) and theoretical and practical\nprinciples of curriculum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Curriculum and Teaching reforms would be the most considerable area in the education reforms process of Sri Lanka and the quality of education will be dependent on the success of the curriculum and teaching process. This is the secrecy that the success of education in Western countries.&nbsp; Parents of Sri Lanka wish [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}