Course: Secondary Education (827) Boo Beaks Level: M.A / M.Ed ssnanenss mar Semester: Autumn, 2018 THESIS, PROJECT PRINTOUT, ASSIGNMENT No. 1 ‘Ceosassebogaresrareer. Q1 Describe the aims of secondary education in the context of 21* century ski What are the policy (2009) recommendations for the skilled based education at secondary level? Answer: ‘Over the past several decades, there has been incréased demand for formal education to include the development of generic skills as well as traditional academic subjects, i.e, to include competencies for ways of thinking, ways of working, tools for working, and skills for living. These skills for today's rapidly changing society, such as communication, problem solving, collaboration, and critical thinking, are being acknowledged increasingly all over the world. The big challenge, however, is knowing how to support and teach these skills in schools and classrooms. In the absence of well-established, evidence-based approaches that demonstrate how to teach the skills and show how students have benefited from the process, countries are selecting a variety of paths to explore optimal models. For example, the “Singapore Swiss Roll’ approach, which is starting to be implemented across the core curriculum, adopts a value-centric framework that incorporates 2ist century competencies, including civic literacy, global awareness, and cross-cultural skills; critical ahd inventive thinking; communication, collaboration and information skills; as well as social and emotional competencies. Syllabi provided by the Ministry of Education offer guiding principles for the variety of teaching approaches that teachers can implement to enhance learning, Australia's national curriculum ‘of 2010 identified seven general capabilities, which teachers are expected to integrate throughout their teaching. They are guided by online resources provided by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. In Costa Rica, with the understanding that the education system needs to progress to respond to the changing demands for skills, the National Development Plan for 2015-2018 and a new curriculum being rolled out in 2018, aims to emphasize the development and application of key 21st century skills and attitudes, such as socioemotional, communication, critical thinking, citizenships, and problem solving. Similarly, Kenya is currently developing their new competency-based curriculum, which is designed to integrate seven competencies 1 | For More AIOU Solved Assignments Contact0300 $852590/03145157997within and across all subject areas, to ensure a comprehensive approach to. skills development, ‘A major recommendation from an Asia-based review of the challenges facing countries as they adopt or integrate "21st century skills’, was to undertake in-depth research into the nature and development of the skills themselves. If we don't understand what skills actually ook like” as children and adolescents at different levels of competence demonstrate them, then’Gxpecting our subject-based and trained teachers to teach them is an unfair impost at best ‘and destined for failure at worst. We have historically taught children based on curricula—roadmaps to learning, These curricula have outlined the substance of what is to be taught, sequences to follow to ensure movement from the simple to complex, and expectations about the quality of anticipated student performance or knowledge. Where are the curricula for skills? Surely, in order for teachers and students to know what simple forms of communication through to sophisticated look like, they need a roadmap. This roadmap then provides the guidelines for how educators can integrate development of student skills within existing and reform subject-based curricula. Creation of these roadmaps requires us to think developmentally, to identify how we develop the competencies. An important component is to identify what demonstration of these competencies might look like and how to elicit or stimulate performance so that we know what the individual is ready to learn. What are the policy (2009) recommendations for the skilled based education at secondary level: 1. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2009 ("the Policy") comes in a series of education policies dating back to the very inception of the country in 1947. The review process for the National Education Policy 1998-2010 was initiated in 2005 and the first document, the White Paper was finalised in March 2007, The White Paper became the basis for development of the Policy document. The lag in finalisation of the draft owes to lot of factors including the process of consultations adopted as well as significant political changes in the country. 2, Two main reasons that prompted the Ministry of Education (MoE) to launch the review in 2005 well before the time horizon of the existing Policy (1998 - 2010)1 were, firstly, the Policy was not producing the desired educational results and the performance remained deficient in several key aspects including access, quality and equity of educational opportunities and 2 | For More AIOU Solved Assignments Contact0300-9852990/03145157997secondly, the international challenges like Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) , Dakar Framework of Action Education for All (EFA) Goals and the challenges triggered by globalisation and nation’s quest for becoming a knowledge society in the wake of compelling domestic pressures like devolution and demographic transformations have necessitated @ renewed commitment to proliferate quality education for al. 3. The document is organized into nine chapters. Chapter 1 describes overarching challenges, identifies two fundamental causes that lie behind the defici incies in performance (the commitment gap and the implementation gap), and outlines the way forward. Chapters 2 and 3 articulate the ways of filling the Commitment Gap (system values, priorities and resources) and Implementation Gap (Ensuring good governance) respectively. Chapters 4 puts forward the provisions of Islamic Education and transformation of the society on Islamic and human values. Chapters 5 to 8 outline reforms and policy actions to be taken at the sub- sector level. Chapter 9 broadly suggests a Framework for Implementation of the Action Plan of this Policy document. Annex- I lays out the current state of education sector. Available indicators have been assessed against data in comparable countries. 4. Many of the areas discussed in this document were present in the previous policy documents prepared in the country from time to time and apparently many of the problems persist. A new policy document on its own will not rectify the situation but all the segments of the society will have to contribute in this endeavour. However, the document does recognise two deficits of previous documents i.e. governance reform and an implementation roadmap which if redressed, can alter results for the present Policy. 5. On governance, the policy discusses the issue of inter-tier responsibilities wherein the respective roles and functions of the federal-provincial-district governments continue to be not clear. Confusion has been compounded, especially, at the provincial-district levels after the ‘Devolution Plan’ mainly because the latter was not supported by a clear articulation of strategies. The other issue identified for governance reforms is the fragmentation of ministries, institutions etc. for management of various sub-sectors of education and, at times, within each sub-sector. Problems of management and planning have also been discussed and recommendations prepared. 6. On implementation, the Policy document includes a chapter that describes the implementation framework. The framework recognises the centrality of the federating units | | For More NOU SoWved signs Contoc0300 3852990/03145157997 |