Curriculum Change and Social Inclusion - International Bureau of ...

1. The first study plans and programmes
During the formation periods of these systems (the end of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, depending on
the country of Latin America to which we refer), the
structure of the study plans and programmes in the
countries of the region was characterized fundamentally
by:
• the inclusion of a large number of curricular areas
(usually about fourteen assignments, at both primary
and secondary levels);
• contents organized into a matrix of two variables
(discipline and school time), which resulted in greater
control and homogenization of the activities taking
place in each of the schools that made up the education
system;
• many curricular contents being presented in a high
degree of detail; 2
• and an emphasis on those contents related to the simple
provision of information.
Clearly, curricular policies and planning did not end, neither
now nor in the past, with the sole centralized preparation
of the study plans and programmes. On the contrary, the
levels of government responsible for education in Latin
America designed and strongly intervened in two other
regulations defining curricular policies, namely:
• the policy of textbooks circulation within the education
system;
• and the mechanisms of assessment and control of the
learning taught in schools.
2. Textbooks
With regard to textbook policy, it is worth pointing out that
in the countries of the region there existed central
government departments that were in charge of the
supervision and approval of texts to be used in schools.
No book lacking the approval of the corresponding
government department could be distributed in schools (in
many countries, this is still the case). Teachers and schools
FIGURE 1. Curricular regulating model employed before the 1990 reforms.
STATE-PROVINCE
27
disobeying this regulation could be disciplined. Thus, the
State not only regulated the content to be taught at the level
of lesson plans and programmes, but that of textbooks too.
This enhanced central control over educational contents
and the focussing required for their transmission.
In the case of Argentina, for example, since the late
nineteenth century until 1940, the National Council of
Education, through its Didactic Commission, ‘prescribed
and adopted the most adequate textbooks for public schools,
encouraging their edition and improvement by means of
contests and stimuli in order to ensure their uniform and
permanent adoption at reasonable prices for a period of
no less than two years’.
More often than not, however, the selection of textbooks
for use in schools had more to do with the lobbying skills
of publishers, political favours and preferences, and matters
of personal relations. In all cases, the need to control the
content of books used for teaching in schools was present
(Rein, 1998).
3. Assessment and control of the system
As regards the second means of curricular regulation,
assessment, it can be said that during the period of setting
up and consolidating education systems in the region, a
model developed by central levels of the system (ministry
of education, national councils of education, etc.) prevailed
and was put into effect by a body of inspectors. This group
visited schools, controlled the students’ copybooks to verify
that norms set by law were being followed and that no
unauthorized content was being taught, and established
direct contact with the teaching staff, attending classes and
reviewing the lesson plan. It was a form of centralized
control over every aspect of teaching in the school.
4. Synthesis: regulation of the curriculum
LEVEL National textbook supervisors/inspectors
PLANNING Curriculum
Accordingly, it is possible to represent the ways in which
the central levels monitored institutional educational
processes during this period as shown in Figure 1.
SCHOOL
INSTITUTION-
LEVEL Everyday educational processes, notebooks
EXECUTION