Curriculum Development for the Inclusive Secondary School
This paper examines projected curricular changes in secondary education over the coming decade, addressing four core questions: what changes will occur and why, what content will emerge, who and what will influence that content, and how curriculum will be developed and designed. Drawing on research from the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) and related scholarship, the paper explores the roles of globalization, university-industry linkages, vocational training, digital literacy, and inclusive education policy. It argues that effective secondary curriculum development requires collaboration among schools, businesses, governments, and communities, and that equitable access to quality education must remain central to curriculum reform efforts.
- Introduction: Research questions, historical context, and IIEP agenda
- Curricular Changes in the Next Decade: What and Why?: Globalization, industry linkages, and youth transitions driving change
- Curricular Content in the Next Decade: College-track versus career-track and technology focus
- Influences on Curricular Content: Key stakeholders and forces shaping curriculum
- Curriculum Development and Design: Collaborative design, national challenges, and expansion rationale
- Summary and Conclusion: Synthesis of findings on equitable curriculum reform
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What makes this paper effective
- It uses a clear four-question framework to organize its inquiry, giving the paper a focused and navigable structure throughout.
- It draws on multiple authoritative international sources, including IIEP publications and comparative education research, to ground its claims in documented evidence.
- It connects macro-level policy concerns (globalization, economic growth, equity) to classroom-level practice (digital literacy, inclusive instruction, curriculum design), demonstrating analytical range.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis of policy-oriented literature. Rather than simply summarizing individual sources, it weaves together findings from multiple IIEP reports, national curriculum documents, and scholarly articles to build a coherent argument about the forces shaping secondary curriculum over the next decade. This technique is particularly useful in education policy writing, where multiple institutional voices must be integrated into a unified analysis.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a research question framework, then moves through four numbered sections that each address one of those questions. An introduction establishes theoretical and historical context. The body sections address curricular change, content projections, influencing forces, and development/design processes in sequence. A summary and conclusion synthesizes the literature reviewed and restates the paper's central argument about collaborative, equity-focused curriculum development.
Introduction
This paper addresses four guiding questions: (1) What curricular changes will we see in the next ten years, and why? (2) What will be the content of the curriculum in the next ten years? (3) What and who will influence that content? (4) Who will be involved in its development and design?
Gudmund Hernes, Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), observes that in higher education and universities, subjects are "taught much the same — mathematics, biology, languages, history, economics. The theories presented and criticized, the notions expounded and challenged, the ideas used to make sense of the world — whether they are embodied in words like 'atoms' or 'galaxies' or 'algorithms' or 'syntax' — are also similar." However, this uniformity does not hold in most secondary education institutions, and according to Hernes, this is largely due to variations in secondary education and vocational training. In order to effectively plan for broad knowledge and a potent imagination — the capacity to envision possible futures and assess the effect of imagined actions — research is presented as essential. Hernes states that those who plan secondary school curricula are assisted by research because of "the methods developed and findings documented" and because "it presents actual modes of organization and structural traits, qualities and shortcomings different from those we already know. Sometimes sobering thoughts arise from vicarious experience. On other occasions, research leads to serendipitous discoveries." (Hernes, 2001)
Hernes identifies the following items on the secondary education agenda:
1) Necessary curriculum revision for better quality and relevance; 2) preparation of students to enter the work world; 3) facilitation of access for students and retention of students from disadvantaged groups; and 4) reduction of inequality in the education offered to different groups. (Hernes, 2001)
Historically and traditionally, curriculum development involved the entire staff of the school system, "under the leadership of administrators and curriculum consultants, organized into committees to develop goals, study problems, organize courses of study, and after a year or two of intensive work and study, produce the school program to be used for the next few years." Curriculum development was described as a "continuous, evolutionary process." (Hernes, 2001)
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