School Curriculums: The Effectiveness Of Pre-College Education

A primary concern of every nation is the education of its future generations. This is why designing and reforming the national curriculum is of great importance to every country. Nevertheless, as careers move toward specialization and individualization, uniform national curriculums become less relevant. In this essay, I will present reasons as to why regionalization of curriculums is the way to maximize the effectiveness of pre-college education for students. Firstly, central governments often use uniform curriculums as a political instrument to standardize their favored cultural practices. Designing the national curriculum is often undertaken by central government commissioners rather than expert educationalists. Expectably, this leads to a shift in authority away from experts of the field and toward the central government who may use this chance to advance its own political agendas. It is historically proven by the plentitude of examples in which totalitarian regimes have exploited school curriculums to force-feed their ideologies to students. It formed the backbone of the Nazi schooling system, and was adopted by Stalin who used it for the USSR. In previously occupied countries such as Poland, the dictatorship of the ‘Reds’ required the study of Marxism as a mandatory part of the school curriculum, whereas during the reign of the ‘Blacks’ it was replaced by Catholicism. While it may be argued that the abuse of national curriculums by a handful of oppressive regimes does not invalidate its benefits, it cannot be denied that the product of a nationally uniform curriculum is like-minded thinkers and workers who have been taught to set aside their individuality in favor of sociopolitical conformity. This is against the democratic principles that underlay a progressive society. Secondly, the many and conspicuous dissimilarities among the national curriculums of different countries undermine the validity of this practice.

If governments claim their uniform curriculums to be so comprehensive as to meet the needs of all students, regardless of how diverse the population may be, then a global curriculum is almost equally justifiable. As it happens to be, national curriculums differ drastically among countries: in Sweden, 30% of the curriculum is devoted to social sciences, while the UK version devotes none. If population diversity is not to be accounted for, the difference between curriculums remains unexplained. In spite of what has been said, critics may argue that education is a social enterprise and must be handled on a national level to preserve a country’s national identity. In response, it must be restated that national curriculums may aim for nationalization, but lead to centralization of power and standardization of culture. There are better ways for the national identity to be formed and reinforced which are not prone to abuse. Lastly, the popularity of ‘shadow education’ in countries with national curriculums attests to their inefficacy. Studies have shown that national curriculums often run for at least thirty years once designed, with minor revisions applied as a futile effort to keep up with the rapid changes in the social scene. Colleges, however, constantly adapt their enrollment requirements and entrance exams to incorporate the latest academic advancements. Institutionalized shadow education is the result of this discrepancy: students have to look elsewhere when schools fail to equip them for their future careers and education. Meanwhile, they must spend the majority of their time and resources on acquiring skills and knowledge that they know to be impractical. This explains why the rate of high school dropouts is alarmingly high in countries with uniform curriculums. Moreover, the inefficiency of such schooling is particularly palpable for students who aim to pursue careers in art or sports, as national curriculums usually tend to focus on core subjects and marginalize skills that they deem “impractical”. That said, it is worthy of note that in small countries with a high GDP per capita where the population is relatively homogeneous, the national curriculum may not be as impractical. Ironically, the countries that continue to use national curriculums are those that do not meet this condition.

To conclude, due to the reasons mentioned above, I believe that pre-college curriculums must be designed by expert educationalists who are familiar with the needs and conditions of the students who will enroll in them. Even so, regionalization of education may be problematic in countries with high intercountry population mobility rates. Thus, it is necessary to maintain some level of educational uniformity, but this should not come in the form of a national curriculum.