Towards a Curriculum Analysis Model for National Development

In this article, it will be postulated that existing methods of analysis and describing the curriculum, as a basis for providing information feedback in order to understand its planning and development, are inadequate. The article thus focuses on a critical analysis of some of the current approaches of describing and analysing the curriculum as a basis for decision-making for its planning and development. These include curriculum evaluation, curriculum criticism, contextual or situational analysis, functional analysis and curriculum analysis. It will be argued that curriculum analysis for planning and development should go beyond teasing out and rationalizing different antecendents, as is the case in contextual analysis, or simply providing information to decision-makers on the conditions under which certain objectives can be achieved, as in some aspects of quantitative curriculum evaluation. Rather, curriculum analysis should also provide information on how antecedents influence decision-making as extrinsic factors, and how selection from some of them is made for inclusion into curriculum content initially as a plan and later translated into curriculum as action. More importantly, it should provide a rationale to help account for decisions or actions taken with regard to its planning and development. It is hoped that through a selective synthesis of some of the relevant methods and processes of the above approaches, a more effective method of curriculum analysis will emerge which will help in providing adequate and more illuminating information on curriculum antecedents and processes on the basis of which decisions on its planning and development can be made.

Zambezia article on curriculum development in Zimbabwean education system.