Curriculum & Assessment Reform: Learning Loss to Long-Term Resilience

It is vital for education authorities to take into consideration the process of curriculum reform, in order to benefit students. This is applicable worldwide, whereby the process of changing the objectives of learning, and the way in which learning takes place should be assessed and reviewed continuously. In August 2020, a private meeting was held for government and civil society officials in Africa, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean to discuss curriculum reform and assessment reform. 

What is Curriculum Reform?

So, what is meant by curriculum reform? Curriculum reform can be defined as the process of implementing changes to the curriculum with the intent of making learning and teaching more meaningful and effective. Research over the years has identified advantages of formative assessment over summative, however, until now there has not been a noticeable global trend, until recently with the impact of prolonged school closures. Many questions are being raised regarding curriculum reform, and what needs to be done to ensure the teaching profession can implement the decisions made at policy level.  

Learning Loss: Why Consider National Curriculum Reform?

Many countries have already begun to implement curriculum reform, with many of the participants within the meeting keen to speak of the implementation of competency-based curricula, in order to better equip their young people with real-world skills for the 21st century. 
Implementation of curriculum reform could benefit other areas in which countries are struggling within the education sector. For instance, Cameroon is a country that has faced serious challenges. School attendance is suffering, and accordingly, the ministry of secondary education is now in the process of making curriculum reform a cornerstone of solving the crisis. 
An important issue raised within the meeting was that curriculum reform is required in order to maintain the continuous professional development of teachers. The profession requires nurturing to be able to deliver reforms in practice. 

Curriculum Reforms in Kenya: A Study

As a developing country, Kenya has considered the need for 21st-century skills and the misalignment between learning content and the world of work. When initially approaching the idea of curriculum reforms, they considered the content and knowledge that are needed for the competencies that are required in terms of the country’s national needs. 
The country hopes to advance the progress of its students as globally competitive citizens with a good standard of living, as well as also being creative and innovative. 
Kenya understands that where skills are needed, teachers need to be re-tooled, and learners are required to gain new competencies and understand how to apply them in the real world. This goes hand-in-hand with the need for a competency-based assessment, ensuring that the assessment is based on industry best practices. 
The Kenyan Ministry of Education has identified that the most important thing is to build the capacity of teachers, so that they can successfully implement and deliver competency-based assessment. They have adopted an online training method for teachers, and have noticed the scalability of blended learning, they are however challenged by those students who do not have access to devices. In order to rectify this problem, they are researching options for assembly plants in the country that prioritise educational devices. 

Problems of Curriculum Reform

There are of course issues that arise with regards to curriculum reform. For instance, several countries spoke of how they have been implementing curriculum reform for a few years, however, the change has not been fully reflected in the pre-service training. This means that new teachers are coming into the system without the full knowledge required for the competency-based curriculum, therefore further resources are required to provide said teachers with in-house training to keep up with curriculum changes. 
Another issue with regards to curriculum reform is that when applying radical changes to curriculum development, is having enough teachers with the correct skills and competencies. The curriculum reform is a journey which begins from pre-service qualification but can be accelerated by implanting outside skills.