Curriculum Reflection

Having established education as one of its cornerstones in Mauritius, curriculum is the instrument for state governance and control in the school system. Educational researchers aim at making the system emerged with pedagogic skills focusing particularly on goals, contents and the outcomes. Initially, curriculum would refer to scheme of work, textbooks, assessment, resources, and the like. However, over the years my understanding of the term curriculum has changed thoroughly. The idea of a curriculum has been differentiated across a wide range of meanings. One basic view is that curriculum is “what is taught.” A narrow view holds that curriculum is “the body of courses that present knowledge, principles, values, and skills that are the intended

(Lawton et al., 1978). Little did I know in a few years time there would be the introduction of new subjects like Travel and Tourism or Entrepreneurship which cater for the holistic development of the new generation and going along with the demand of the country and globalisation. Previously, literature for me revolved only around Shakespeare or Chaucer, however we now have modern and Postmodern Literature which is very up to date with the trend of younger generation.

To Paul Hirst (1968, p39), philosophy is ‘concerned with clarification of concepts and propositions in which our experience and activities are intelligible’. Thus, for curriculum developers, an understanding of philosophy and a comprehension of one’s own educational philosophy are essential in order to make useful and intelligible statements about experience which are to be passed on to subsequent

There is a clear start and a clear end therefore no addition and/or deletion can be made when following this model. The objectives are considered to be of the utmost importance as they then become an effective base for selecting appropriate learning experiences, organising those experiences and determining evaluation. While implementing Tyler’s model, the above-mentioned elements are arranged in a fixed order. In other words, we have to complete one phase before moving to the next one. Primarily, I formulate the objectives based on the learners and their backgrounds, the contemporary society and the subject specialists - philosophy, psychology and sociology. Then I select and organize activities, and adopt suitable teaching strategies to enable learners to achieve the educational purposes as mentioned in the NCFS. Ultimately, during evaluation, the achieved results are compared with the outcomes as stated in the objectives. Therefore, Tyler’s rational model is teacher-centered designed to test specific