Page 61 - Jurnal Kurikulum BPK 2018

Beauchamp (1975) defined curriculum system as the system for decision making and
action with respect to the three primary functions of curriculum planning, curriculum
implementation and curriculum evaluation. All these functions involve continuous decision
making and actions. Decisions made must fulfil certain criteria, guided by theoretical principles,
and carried out systematically. Besides curriculum system, there are many other systems at work
in the educational institutions such as administration system, supervisory system, instruction
system and evaluation system as shown in Appendix 1 (Beauchamp, 1975). Each system is
essential for the effective running of the educational institutions; at the grass root level: the school
and at a higher level: the Ministry of Education. Among all these systems, curriculum system is
one which has great influence over the others; it acts as an input to most of the other systems.
Systematic and well defined theoretical grounded processes need to be designed to maintain and
improve all these systems. The planning and carrying out of these systematic processes is known
as curriculum engineering (Beauchamp, 1975; Ornstein & Hunkins, 1993). In another word,
curriculum engineering includes processes, procedures with theoretical basis to determine the
arena for curriculum planning, curriculum implementation and curriculum evaluation.
In treating curriculum as a system, a comprehensive long term plan need to be established
covering areas of teacher education, resource production and distribution, assessment policies and
practices, professional development programs, certification requirement, supervision as well as
monitoring. The role and responsibility of various stakeholders including
institutions/organisations/individuals need to be ascertained and action plan drawn up. At each of
these sub-system, systematic and good governance mechanism that shapes and supports teachers
and other stakeholders in implementing the curriculum must be put in place. The plan need to also
reflect the strategic plan for organisations and administration at state, district and school levels.
The important element of coherence and components of interacting between these sub-systems
must be put in place lest the silo mentality might hinder the success of the curriculum
implementation. Clearly defined role, communication plan, involvement of families and
communities must be in place as well.

CHALLENGES IN CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION

Curriculum is sometime refers to as a political agreement, it outline the government’s
national agenda (IBE, 2013). At the same time, it is also a policy and technical agreement with
the people as it consist of the expectations of the society at local, national and global level (IBE,
2013). It is an important document that need the support of both the government and the people.
The urgency of change at time can be overwhelming and thus insufficient attention is given to
managing the change, the time needed for change is largely being ignored. In such instances,
curriculum implementation might suffers as the teachers might not be ready for the change or
resources has not been made sufficient or infrastructure not in place. Coherence among the various
agencies responsible for curriculum change might not have been designed comprehensively,
leaving many gaps which affect the success of the curriculum implementation.
National level change will definitely incur huge cost. While private sector may use a
substantial portion of its fund, up to 20% (IBE, 2013) to introduce and spearhead change, public
sector due to its sheer size could not afford to do so and may spent up to only 1 % only of its
available resources (IBE, 2013) on change-oriented efforts and in many instances educators might
even work overtime without extra pay to adjust to the change (IBE, 2013). This might be one
reason attributed to the curriculum implementation gap. However to be fair, in actual cost, the 1%
spending by public sector may far exceed the 20% by private sector.

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