Curriculum Review

Curriculum springs from its Latin root word ‘currere’, meaning “a running, course, career”. The national school curriculum provides the pathway for children to acquire the knowledge, skills, and personal development to become confident individuals, and responsible citizens, locally and globally. The curriculum ought to be relevant for a society’s economic, social, spiritual, and cultural aspirations, and connects learning to societal needs. It meets the aspirations of students, families, communities, and society. Curriculum lives and grows. It nurtures learning through contextual experiences; its usefulness and meaning are derived through the situatedness of students.

In the developing world, many adopted the medium of instruction, school curriculum and school-end examinations of former colonial powers. Others, as part of nation-building, departed from the curriculum of colonial powers and developed their own. Few, such as Singapore, retained the medium of instruction and the essence of the curriculum of former colonial powers and tweaked it to the needs of their society. The Maldives, never a colony of the British Empire, but as a protectorate adopted the United Kingdom, adopted the British curriculum and examinations. From the 1960s, our government schools followed British curriculum policy, content, and examinations. In 1978 we developed a national primary curriculum, which has been revised several times. We have internationalized the secondary examinations of British-based examination bodies. Our students’ Cambridge IGCSE results have improved remarkably over the past decade.

Yet, murmurs of dissatisfaction, concern and the urgent need for curricular change is common among educators and policymakers. Thus, A policy review of curricula relevance for the Maldives seems timely. MPAC hopes to conduct such a review and share our findings with recommendations.