Naslov
Croatian National Curriculum for Compulsory Education from Teachers' perspective

Autori
Baranović, Branislava ; Domazet, Mladen

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Skup
European Conference on Educational Research

Mjesto i datum
Dublin, Irska, 06.09.2005. - 11.09.2005

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Poster

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Croatian National Curriculum; compulsory education; evaluation of syllabi; teachers' opinion; curriculum changes

Sažetak
Recent educational developments and strategic goals in Europe (Lisbon, Stockholm and Barcelona summit conclusions) confront the Croatian education system with new tasks – to enhance the process of transition of Croatia towards a knowledge based economy, developed democracy and integration in European Union as its full member. Incorporating European strategic goals and adapting to the educational developments in Europe, demands from Croatia deeper interventions in the educational system, especially in the national curriculum. More is so given the fact that the Croatian national curriculum, in difference to other transition countries, has not undergone structural and content changes needed. The presentation will be based on the findings of the research project “ Evaluation of syllabi and development of national curriculum for compulsory education in Croatia” . Its purpose was to contribute to the development of the scientific basis for the reform of the national curriculum with the aim of improving the quality of school education. The focus is on the teachers’ perception of current state and changes of the national curriculum for compulsory education in Croatia. Theory of new competencies for the knowledge based society (Letchert, 2004 ; Rychen & Salganik, 2001) and “ humane education” approach (Gardner, 2000) formed the theoretical framework for development of the research questions. Consequentlly, the characteristics of the curriculum were investigated through teachers’ evaluation of the following dimensions: (1) the key curriculum design concepts such as coherence, breadth and balance, contemporariness, relevance for students, etc. (Harland et al., 2002) ; (2) representation of areas of child development in syllabi (cognitive, physical-motor, emotional, social, motivational, esthetical, moral-ethical and practical-technical area), (3) time alocation for each subject and (4) changes in the subject structure of the national curriculum (subjects that should not be taught in school and subjects that should be introduced in schools), etc. The project was carried out in 2003 on the stratified-random sample of 121 elementary schools, which is 15% of the total number of elementary schools in Croatia. In total 3468 teachers participated, whereby 1134 classroom teachers in grades 1-4 and 2134 of those were subject teachers in grades 5-8. The applied questionnaire consisted of closed and open-ended questions set mainly on Likert scales. Both, the findings on the representation of the analysed areas of child development in the subjects, and teachers’ estimation of the time table show that the existing curriculum is cognitive oriented while not balanced enough. The cognitive area is the most represented area in the national curriculum (child cognitive development is coverd by each subject) while the esthetical, physical-motor and practical-technical area are the least presented areas (they are covered by one or limited number of subjects). The teachers’ estimation of the present teaching hours of each subject also reveal that the subjects responsible for their development have the smallest and insuficient number of hours. Even 45% teachers think that Arts, Music, Physical and Technical education shoud have more teaching hours than they have. According to teachers the weakest points of the syllabi are their insfficient horizontal coherence (the lowest values on the scale for all subjects), a content overload and obsoleteness. Teachers also advocate changes in subject strcture of the national curriculum. One third of them think that Religious education should not be taught in schools and 51% of them would lessen its teaching hours and introduce informatics and second foregin language as compulsory subjects instead. In conclusion, the current national curriculum can not be improved by partial measures, but replaced by a new one, more suitable to the demands of the recent educational developments and strategic goals in Europe.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija, Pedagogija

POVEZANOST RADA