Reforming a Curriculum
Dr. Omar Hasan Kasule

I’m glad to find you & thank you very much to come in this afternoon. I hope all of you have got this copy of outline ‘Reforming a Curriculum’. This outline is my idea about how eventually we can reform the curriculum but the moment we need to prepare the basic concept, basic ideas & materials. There needs a lot of effort so nobody should think that curriculum reform is too much easy. We should be very realistic. It requires working consistently. We need to make materials, publish it, and distribute it, lets others comment on it. It’s a long process. But what will happen i.e. time to time the Government of Bangladesh or the donor countries provide helps they come & say you must do curriculum reform. Normally they don’t want to change the curriculum unnecessarily. What they want, they also have their own vision. So the opportunity will come. In universities in every year 2-3 opportunity will come to change. You can’t enter the process. But if you are already prepared then you can come. But you need to be ready So what I want to go through. How university changes their curriculum when they will ask you then you can tell, yes we are already prepared. You have ideas about what we are doing now improving / reforming each discipline. As you have ideas, you can have big impact and big influence.

1.0 Description of the Structure of the Curriculum
We have to think what the curriculum we have.
What is the structure?
How many courses have it got. Then we can describe the curriculum. Some times some universities can’t describe their curriculum there are some historical universities, which have been for along time but there is no structure for curriculum. So, when do you ask them, you will find there is nothing?
IIUM has the structure, because when they started, the 1st step was to describe the structure of the curriculum.

2.0 Description of the Implementation of the Curriculum
2nd Step is to describe how the existing Curriculum is being implemented. And to assess is it effective or not effective. How it is working. Is it by teaching, is it practical or case study. How it has been implemented to reach the idea. How effective the implement is. This is important before reforming the Curriculum. You have to do it.

3.0 Strategy for Curriculum Reform
After that you have to think about the strategy. There are two ways to read this:

3.1 Incremental Changes in Response to Changing Environment or Following the Trends
We can’t do it by incremental changes. Most Universities don’t change curriculum in a sudden/ certain big way. Because, the dislocation in future. They keep on a little bit in time. This is call incremental.

3.2 Fundamental Changes dictated by a Vision, Philosophy, Or a World View
How the change is disposed to environment. Like the business course. In any University may have survey that for last two years their students are not getting jobs very well after completing their study? So unless they get good jobs they don’t get promoted. That’s why we need to change the curriculum. And they made a change. Or, it may be in a department, like biology, in last 3 yrs the graduates or going to teach in the school. They have complained that they don’t understand the basic issues. So reform of curriculum is needed.

So most of the Universities change a little at a time sometimes we made fundamental changes based on a change in vision. Like a University wanted to change from a teaching University to research University. Do you know the difference, some University is just for teaching. They thought teaching can’t be the main aim we want to do research. But the University can’t take the decision own/themselves. The government will take the decision. Like in Malaysia the government said you have that one & that one. So you won’t be a research University. So, teaching going to be the main job. That change can be the major change with a vision or philosophy or world view. I think when talking about Islamization the changes we may have to do could be as this nature. This is the complete change of world view of the University. So, these are two strategies.

Some do practices combining both because you can’t make revolution in one time. Sometimes need both together, little bit this, little bit of that.

4. Internal Curriculum Review
Now often we think about the strategy to make a serious review of the curriculum in a formal way. There are two kinds of review. One is external and other. One is internal. Internal Review is of two types.

4.1 Formal Faculty Review
Incase of the internal review we set up a committee from each faculty to review the curriculum. We give them terms of reference & they sit for two months, prepare a curriculum, present a report. They will denote the weaknesses & recommend the changes. Indeed this is faculty review.

4.2 Questionnaire Survey of Students and Lecturers
But, we can’t rely only on faculty review. These who are reviewing as a teacher they are the ones who teach. So, some times they only see from their own point of view. They only present in the classroom, they don’t think about the mind of a student. For internal change of curriculum we need to prepare a questionnaire. We can take a very good questionnaire. Then can distribute it to our students who are studying in and also some of those who have graduated already. What part of the curriculum is most useful to you? Which one is not so good? What changes would   like to make. Sometimes we also need to give a questionnaire to the lecturers as general. Because, if we choose the seniors they may be on committee. But to have opinions/feedback from all we need to prepare questionnaire then we can identify the areas of weakness which things needed to be changed.

5. External Curriculum Review
It is not enough to review the external curriculum only. There are certain few things you may not be aware of. But the outsider may be able to see. Some time to see. So the external review can be done in two ways.

5.1 The Accreditation Committee
I don’t know do you have enough accreditation committee/are there any authorized organizations that do accreditation of Universities. In Malaysia we have national accreditation body to visit the each University every five years to check and find the weaknesses. After overcoming the weaknesses they certify that ok this is the standard curriculum. The accreditation organization is needed. They help us a lot. They really help us to improve our standard.

5.2 Professional Bodies
But we can give it to professional bodies like the faculty of engineers. We can give it to institute of   engineering to come and to review the curriculum. This is the external review. They only can give the idea which parts of the curriculum need to be changed.

6. Results of the Curriculum and its Implementation
The process of curriculum changes itself takes time, a lot of consultation, a lot of meetings. But these are the things we need to consider.

6.1 Process Measure
We need to consider point 6.1, process measure. Examine our curriculum, how is the process of the curriculum. In how many process do we teach, what the participation of the students. How many pupils do take part? These are the process measure.

6.2 Outcome Measure
Then we have to think about the outcome measure. How can we measure the outcome?
• Students, do they pass.
• What is the average pass marks.
• After completing how many didn’t get job outside.
All these are the outcome measure that we need to consider.

6.3 The Strengths
Now we have to consider strengths. What are the strengths of our curriculum? Because, there must be some strengths.

6.4 Weaknesses  
We also have to be honest to point out the weaknesses of our curriculum.

6.5 Need for Change: How much and what to change
After doing all these now it is the last point. We have to decide how much change we need. What to change. Then we will go for change. Then we can use the curriculum for 3-4 years. Then we have to make another review. We need review in every 5 years. Some departments need review even faster. As example, faculty of computer Science. Because it is advancing so quickly. If you loose you will lose time. Once a teacher in Egypt telling that this book is a very good book. Best book on computer. I have been teaching it for last ten years. Subhanallah, students are suffering than because in computer science 2 years is too long. They need frequent changes. So, different disciplines needed different time frame. But 5 years is average for other disciplines. Why do we need to go through this type of changes? As we need to improve our curriculum to Islamization. Then can express it and sometime anybody can come with new idea. So the idea can be adopted. Alexander Flaming, a great biologist, discover the penicillin accidentally.

He was doing something in laboratory. He said ‘chance favored the well prepared man’. Because their mind was already prepared as they are looking for some scientific invention. So when the chance comes they could easily grasp it & accept it. Same thing about curriculum review if your mind is prepare when the people want about curriculum change then you can be there & ideas are ready then you can have a very good impact on the process of curriculum review. So Inshallah I will stop here & thank you very much for listening to me.