Curriculum Planning Process for the Primary Level Education in Post-1991 Ethiopia: The Case of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State
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Date
2015-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Diversifying primary school experiences has been considered as a solution to
accommodate differences through school curriculum and the government of Ethiopia set
an Education and Training Policy (ETP) that provides provisions on localizing primary
school curriculum to make the education relevant and responsive to the learner and the
society. To materialize the policy, the roles of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the
Regional Education Bureau (REB) with regard to curriculum planning process for the
primary school were described. Researches on access, equity, quality, efficiency and
relevance, which necessitated the launching of the declaration of the Education and
Training Policy, were made. However, there have been scarcities of research reports on
curriculum planning process for primary schools in post-1991 Ethiopia, especially on
Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ Regional State (SNNPRS). Thus, a
descriptive case study and content analysis were conducted with a purpose to examining
and getting clear understanding on the implementation of the policy provisions by
assessing to what extent the curriculum planners have been acquainted with the
theoretical knowledge, the rationales of curriculum planning and localization of the
primary schools’ curriculum and possess required technical skills. It also examined how
open and flexible the syllabi were to incorporate local experiences and to accommodate
local differences, the work relationship between the Federal and the SNNPR Education
Bureau; the achievements, problems and challenges of the localization of the primary
school curriculum. To this end, a mixed methods research design has been employed and
samples of curriculum planners were selected from former Institute for Curriculum
Development and Research (ICDR) and the current Curriculum Development and
Implementation Core Process Directorate (CDICPD) from the Ministry of Education
using snowball and availability sampling techniques respectively. At the regional level,
the Region’s Education Bureau, six Zones and a Special Woreda Education
Departments’ Curriculum and Educational Materials Supply Core Performers, Subject
Performers, textbook writers and editors were selected using stratified, availability and
snowball sampling techniques. A total of 54 samples were made to fill in a questionnaire.
In addition, thirteen students’ textbooks were selected using stratified sampling technique
for content analysis. Semi-structured interview items were used to collect data from the
two heads, two panel members and a coordinator; a director, two experts of the ICDR
and the CDICPD at the federal level. One core performer, nine subject performers, eight
textbook writers, and three content and language editors were interviewed at the
SNNPRS. The data collected through the interview, questionnaire and content analysis
were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative (mixed methods) approaches. The
qualitative data analysis has been done using narration while the quantitative data were
analyzed using frequency count, percentage and mean values to determine the position of
level of agreement of the respondents. The analysis of the data showed that the primary
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Keywords
Education