CHILEAN SECONDARY EDUCATION CURRICULUM REFORM

1. CHILEAN SECONDARY EDUCATION CURRICULUM REFORM Seminar on Growth Strategies for Secondary Education in Asia Kuala Lumpur, September 19-21, 2005 Cristián Cox Ministry of Education, Chile

2. Scheme of the presentation Estándar de Desempeño • Policy and school system contexts • New curriculum definition process • Dimensions of curriculum change • Implementation • Questions and issues FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

3. 1 POLICY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL CONTEXTS

4. Improvements in education’s quality and equity as driving goals (not access) Change of paradigm : from subsidiary (1980s) to pro-active role of the state in education (1990s) National consensus on strategic priority of education . (National commissions and consultation processes: government-opposition agreements on fundamental policies) Trebling of public budget for education between 1990-2001 (from 2.4 to 4.4 per cent of GDP) Policy context in the 90s

5. Stability of policies during three governments of same center-left alliance (1990 - 2006) Combination of state and market policy tools Governance: low levels of conflict (38 days of teachers strike in 16 years (20 of which in one conflict in 1998) Policy Context (cont.)

6. Policy Context (cont.) Curriculum changes embedded in comprehensive educational reform, whose main other components are: • Expansion of school time (Full School Day reform) • New educational infrastructure and learning resources: computers, texts, libraries, buildings • Teacher initial training and professional development programs • Pro-equity, affirmative action programs

7. Secondary Education Context (2000) • Structure: 4 grades (years 9 to 12) First 2: Common, general education curriculum Last 2: Differentiated curricula –general and technical professional- • Gross enrolment ratio 15 to 18 years old: 85 % • Enrolment (2001) : 850,713 • Drop-out (average four grades): 7 % • Gender Parity Index : 1 • Average number of students per teacher: 29 • 92 % of students with ICT in their schools 78 % with Internet in their Schools

8. CHILE IN PISA 2000

9. 2 NEW CURRICULUM DEFINITION PROCESS

10. CURRICULUM REFORM AS SCHOOL SYSTEM’S ANSWER TO NEW EXTERNAL REQUIREMENTS Mapa de progreso • information and knowledge society • crisis of other agencies of value transmission (family and social order as a whole) • competitiveness of the Chilean economy increasingly based on educational level of its population • modern citizenship requirements

11. CURRICULUM REFORM PROCESS Focal policy problem Knowledge, abilities and values for XXI century • Decision field Government + public deliberation: school system-wide participatory process • Conflict -Political Conflict in 1992 on values -Opposition in 1997 from technical-education teachers and institutions -Major conflict on changes in university entrance examinations – from ‘academic aptitude tests’ to ‘curriculum referred tests’ (2002). • Implementation strategy Gradual Combination of centralized and decentralized tools Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

12. CURRICULUM DEFINITION PROCESS’ MAIN FEATURES Prolonged : Time of agenda setting, elaboration and decision-making 5 ½ years in two periods: 1991-92, and1995-1998. Time of initial implementation 4 years(1999-2002) Two generating ‘triple helixes’ : i) leading academics- secondary school teachers-MOE’s experts (for general curriculum) ii) leading industry representatives-technical secondary school teachers-MOE´s experts (for technical-professional curriculum) Recurrent consultation processes : between generating bodies and schools and other institutions Participative Technical basis which combined leading university academics and school teachers , and leading representatives of industry (for technical-professional education) Explicit component of international comparison

13. Elaboration, consultation......: multi-step process Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

14. Elaboration, consultation, decision, approval: multi-step process (continued) Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

15. Schools’ Subject Departments response to proposed curriculum (Selected subjects; % over national total = 12,888)

16. THE DIALECTICS OF ‘GENERATION AND CONSULTATION’ PRODUCED.... A National, mandatory, CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK: • Of ‘Fundamental Goals and Minimum Obligatory Contents’ • Which ‘negotiated’ tradition and innovation Initial proposal was more radical in terms of innovation than the approved one. Loss in innovation-value was a gain in terms of implementation’s feasibility. • Schools could now choose to develop their syllabi within the parameters of the framework, or use MOE’s defined programs of study Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

17. Highly specific with respect to: Contents Expected learning outcomes Learning activities Assessment activities Explicit definitions of: Time per major units of teaching- Pedagogical orientation Examples of activities for each learning goal MINISTRY OF EDUCATION’SPROGRAMS OF STUDY (SYLLABI)

18. 3 DIMENSIONS OF CURRICULUM CHANGE

19. CURRICULUM REFORM : FOUR DIMENSIONS • CONTROL –decentralization- • STRUCTURE –postponement of differentiation- • ORGANIZATION –cross-curricular strands- • SUBJECT –new contents and learning goals-

20. CONTROL From centralized control resting on the Ministry of Education, to curriculum decentralization: • Schools have the option to define their own programs of study (syllabi) –within the parameters of a national curriculum framework-. • A new institution –state but not government- in charge of the curriculum : Consejo Superior de Educación (CSE)Ministry proposes, CSE evaluates and approves curriculum and programmes. Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM • CONTROL • STRUCTURE • ORGANIZATION • SUBJECT

21. STRUCTURE La organización • No change in the 8-4 years structuring of the primary/secondary level divide of the school system. • postponement in 2 years of point of differentiation between general and technical secondary education (from year 9 to year 11)

22. STRUCTURE….cont. La organización • Differentiated formation in technical –vocational education: from more than 400 specialities with uncertain or inexistent links with production, to 46 jointly defined by industry and educators. • Differentiated formation in general education, means options of specialization in the common humanistic-scientific disciplines, open to students’ and schools´definitions -within nationally defined parameters-.

23. ORGANIZATION Hitos más relevantes • Inclusion of cross-curricular objectives (moral and cognitive) • Inclusion of ICT across curricular objectives (secondary level) • Technology Education substitutes the traditional Manual Arts subject (years 1 to 10) • Foreign Language is made obligatory as from year 5 (previously year 7)

24. CRITERIA FOR CHANGES WITHIN SUBJECTS Estándar de Desempeño • REORIENTATION: not only knowing-that, but also knowing-how, knowing-why, judging, evaluating • BREADTH AND DEPTH: objectives and contents which are richer and contemporary; higher standards • RELEVANCE: consistent connections with students’ and society’s concerns and life FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM • CONTROL • STRUCTURE • ORGANIZATION • SUBJECT

25. EACH SUBJECT’S REORIENTATION DESIGNED TO ENHANCE THE ACQUISITION OF TRADITIONAL COMPETENCIES; OR NEW COMPETENCIES DEMANDED BY EXTERNAL CONTEXTSMAINLY: Hitos más relevantes • Capacity for abstraction • Thinking in terms of systems • Experimenting and learning to learn • Communicating and team work • Problem resolution • Managing of uncertainty and adaptation to change

26. Subjects’ new focii, higher level knowledge

27. Interpretation of public information (facts /judgment distinction) Expression and debate (argumentation, persuasion, seduction) Critical thinking and moral discernment (ethics and power) Organization and participation (collective coordination for action) Citizenship-related skills promoted in language, history and philosophy subjects

28. 4 IMPLEMENTATION

29. CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION • Gradual : one grade per year (between 1999-2002) • In-service teachers’ training for ‘familiarization’ with new curriculum: one week and a half per year. Criticized by majority of teachers as ineffective • New ‘differentiated structure’ adopted by over 95% of secondary schools • Gradual increase of curriculum coverage by teachers Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM • CONTROL • STRUCTURE • ORGANIZATION • SUBJECT

30. CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION (cont.) • Differences between subjects : the greater the degree of innovation, the lower its coverage by teachers • Curriculum coverage improves with time • What tends to be skipped? .- what’s new for teachers; .- what’s at the end of the school year (in the syllabi) Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM • CONTROL • STRUCTURE • ORGANIZATION • SUBJECT

31. Implementation (cont.) Estándar de Desempeño • Decisive impact of extension of school hours 261 more chronological hours per year in first two grades of secondary; 174 hours per year in the last two grades(about 10 and 7 additional weeks of classes) • Expanded time and the accomodation of innovation • Teaching practices not yet consistently up-graded and transformed FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM

32. LEARNING RESULTS IN SECOND GRADE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION (YEAR 10) 1998, 2001,2003 Based on standardized tests applied to the whole relevant cohort

33. Learning results in Language, 10th grade, 1998-2003.

35. 5 Questions and Issues

36. QUESTIONS • New curriculum as change force - if too far from tradition…disconnection from teachers understanding and sense of the possible - if too close…, external pressures for change unanswered; and no internal (school system) pressure for change and improvement • How to reach the right equilibrium point? What knowledge and institutional basis are needed for answering this adequately? Estándar de Desempeño FOUR DIMENSIONS OF CHANGE IN THE CURRICULUM • CONTROL • STRUCTURE • ORGANIZATION • SUBJECT

37. Trade-off between degree of specificity of national curriculum definitions and curriculum-development capacities in schools Dynamic character of balance to strike here...The weaker the national teaching basis, the greater the need for explicit and highly specific national definitions; conversely... Trade-off between extent of sought innovation in the curriculum and teachers’ participation and support for implementation Different dimensions of quality (inputs, process, learning outcomes), coupled with different time-scale ofoutcomes and asynchrony with political times. ISSUES and KEY TRADE-OFFS

38. Answer with similar consistency and force, to requirements of competitiveness and social cohesion Dedicate similar energies to answer national needs and global demands Sympathize with your opposition Strive for balance of epistemologies regarding vision and of power regarding implementation CRITERIA FOR CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ?

39. THANKS