sou · GVB328 · 2008-01-01 00:00:00 — That schools use publisher products in teaching is not a problem in itself – the entire educational publishing industry is based on teachers assessments of what text books they consider best for their teaching. It is difficult to assess the extent to which different publishing products coincide with the goals of the na- tional syllabi, but teaching aids containing material that conflicts with the fundamental values that schools are tasked with commu- nicating exist, according to the for Edu- cation. Since teachers are often uncertain about how syllabi should be interpreted, teaching is often dictated by the teachers own experi- ences of previous syllabi. There have been similar developments in The 1994 Finnish national curriculum was relatively brief and the big variations in local curricula resulted in the introduction of a new, more detailed curriculum in 2004. Another important aspect of my analysis is that the states initia- tives for implementing both the goal system and the grading sys- tem have failed. Insufficient knowledge on the part of teachers about the system and the steering documents that exist have pri- marily led to legal uncertainty for pupils. There has been no in- struction, either in teachers education, school head training or teachers in-service training, on state systems of governance as ex- pressed primarily in the Education Act, the national curriculum and the syllabi. To sum up, I consider that the lack of clarity on the part of the state in communicating its aims to schools has contributed to a lack of understanding of the principles of management by objec- tives and results. Insufficient control over the curriculum and syl- labi have also contributed, in my view, to a large number of differ- ent local interpretations, which may be both positive and negative. What is positive is that the scope for interpretation at local level has probably contributed to positive developments in teaching, which has been shown, for example, from experience with pilot projects in teaching without timetables in compulsory school. What is negative is that all the various local syllabi and grading cri- teria have helped create such enormous differences in knowledge requirements that the equivalence of compulsory school may be called into question. Somewhat drastically, my overall assessment can be summarised as follows: Goals related to norms and values in Lpo 94 have had an impact on compulsory school teaching, but it is the educational targets from Lgr 80, i.e. the 1980 syllabi or earlier curricula that have largely influenced the knowledge content of teaching. What shortcomings need to be rectified? My analysis of the reasons behind the lack of impact of todays management system shows that there are shortcomings at all levels of the school system. The goal system as such is seen as being too complicated. The curriculum, and above all the syllabi have become too abstract, which has led to obvious difficulties for teachers who are to interpret and apply these steering documents. The states initiatives to assist the system have been inadequate – above all, there is no background material in the form of commentaries and reference material which could have guided school management and teachers. When the most recent syllabi began to apply as of autumn , no implementation initiatives other than printed material and the for Education website were pro- vided. for Educations work on syllabi has been extensively influenced by an ideological approach with regard to the principles of management by objectives and results so that, for example, the syllabi would contain no mention of anything to do with subject content or method. In my view, there is nothing to indicate that syllabi with an explicitly stated subject content would conflict with a school system managed by objectives and results. My proposals primarily aim at rectifying the above shortcomings. Proposals for the goal system (Chapter 2) A change in the concept of curriculum The fact that the goals of syllabi should not reiterate those of the curriculum does not mean that the goals of the curriculum are less important. However, repetition may be seen as introducing the overall goals of the curriculum by the back door because the state had no faith in teachers knowledge of the curriculums goals. In order to make the connection between the overall goals of the cur- riculum and those of the syllabi clear, I propose abandoning to- days concept of a curriculum. The curriculum should, in my view, contain the overarching goals that state the values and general competencies that all pupils should have developed after complet- ing their education at compulsory school, and define the subject- specific competencies that are given in the syllabi comprising edu- cation at compulsory schools. If introduced, the proposal means that a curriculum refers to a steering document that corresponds to what our Nordic neighbours and other countries call a curriculum. The proposal also means reverting to the definition of a curriculum steering document that existed before Lpo 94 and that many teach- ers consider actually applies to todays curriculum. The need for a revision of the curriculum According to its terms of reference, the inquiry is to propose ad- justments to the curriculum as a result of the proposed changes in the goal system. However, in my view, substantial changes in the contents of todays curriculum are required. These are considered to be so extensive that they cannot be dealt with under the terms of reference of this inquiry. It is therefore not appropriate to propose only minor adjustments to the curriculum. For this reason, only a rough outline of how the overall goals should be formulated will be given. In all essentials, the overall goals should contain the basic values that are today found under the heading of Norms and values, but there should be a discussion of how the section on Knowledge should be formulated in the future. The overall goals of the cur- riculum should state the general competencies that all pupils should have developed when they leave compulsory school. In European cooperation, has committed itself to supporting the goals decided in the agreement in 2000. In my view, this agreement should be reflected in the Swedish curricula. These in- volve pupils developing general competencies such as learning to explore, learn and work both independently and together with oth- ers and establishing the habit of independently formulating view- points based both on knowledge and on rational and ethical con- siderations. With regard to subject-specific knowledge, it is logical to refer to the educational targets of the syllabi in the overall goals of the cur- riculum. This can be done using expressions making clear the links between the overall goals and the goals of the syllabi. At present there is, for example, a goal in the curriculum stating that after completing compulsory school, pupils must have a mastery of basic mathematical principles and be able to use them in everyday life. It is quite clear that such a knowledge objective must be given in the syllabus for mathematics and does not need to be specifically stated in the overall goals. Only one type of goal The goal system for compulsory school must be simple. Todays system with two types of goals should, in my view, be removed. Instead, it is proposed that the syllabi should contain only one type of goal. Syllabi goals should refer to knowledge of subjects much more clearly than they do at present. The goals should therefore define the knowledge of the subject that teaching should be aimed at. Todays reiteration of the overall curricula goals in syllabi must be avoided as far as possible. The type of goal proposed should naturally not limit the devel- opment of pupils knowledge in the subject, but the goals of the syllabi should be realistic and adjusted to compulsory school teaching. The goals of compulsory school and those of upper sec- ondary school should also be formulated so that together they show a progression of knowledge. Teaching at upper secondary schools should naturally be able to build further on the knowledge pupils have developed in compulsory school. Upper secondary school teaching must not become a repetition of compulsory school subjects. There are several hundred different ways of formulating achieve- ment requirements in todays syllabi, which, in my view is not nec- essary. Goals should be described with a limited number of well- defined expressions specifying the knowledge that teaching in a particular subject should develop. It is important that the nuances of language in the syllabus are clear and easy to understand, which should be possible to achieve using fewer expressions than is the case at present. In order to make syllabi clearer, it is proposed that they should specify a main subject content. This means that the areas of knowledge covered by teaching in the subject should be clearly specified. Syllabi should give teachers the freedom and responsibility to- gether with pupils to plan their teaching based on local conditions and interests, but should also act as a guarantee that pupils, re- gardless of school, will acquire knowledge that is equivalent to that of pupils elsewhere. Here a balance must be struck in the manage- ment of teaching at schools. If syllabi are more clearly defined than they are at present, they will provide a better basis for those pro- ducing national tests, for educational publishers, etc. Syllabi should contain regulations on grading At present, syllabi and grading criteria are separate regulations, al- though this is not something that most people reflect on, because, for example, they are printed together in publications from the for Education. There is no objective reason for them distinct and it is therefore proposed that regulations on assessments of pupils knowledge should be included as part of syllabi. The type of goal proposed means that expressions such as has achieved the goals will no longer be relevant. Goals must define the knowledge at which teaching in a subject is directed. This means that knowledge requirements that describe the knowledge that pupils should be able to perform after completion of the course must be specified in other ways than those currently ex- pressed as goals to attain. For school year 9, it may perhaps be natural to retain the concept of grading criteria as a support for setting grades. For years in which no grades are set, and that need to be comparable nationally, knowledge requirements need to be defined that correspond with todays goals to attain. Even here, it should be possible to formulate criteria. Instead, it could be made simpler by specifying the knowledge requirement for acceptable achievement in the syllabus for the school year in question. The concept of grading criteria, in my view, should be eliminated and replaced by specific knowledge requirements for the grading scale of Pass, Pass with Distinction and Pass with Special Distinction. The requirements for acceptable achievement and the various levels in the grading scale should be gathered under one heading in the syllabus, which is proposed to be called grounds for assessment. By listing goals and knowledge requirements in the syllabi, results- based management will also become clearer. Knowledge require- ments in the syllabi are targeted at pupils but it is the school and its principal organiser that are responsible for the student fulfilling these knowledge requirements, i.e., these are the results required of the education provider. Syllabi must be supplemented with commentary material There are several factors of significance for the clarity of syllabi. Even if goals are more clearly formulated by using language and vocabulary more consistently and stringently, this is not sufficient. Statements explaining and clarifying the reasons for the goals are needed in special commentary material, including concrete exam- ples of what a goal may entail. The lack of explanation for the reasoning behind todays syllabi and grading criteria is manifest. Future syllabi must be supple- mented by comprehensive commentaries giving teachers a proper description of the ideas and motives behind the syllabus in a sub- ject. Concrete assessment examples that give teachers support when interpreting the goals and requirements of the syllabi are needed. The state cannot govern the school system merely by giv- ing clearer goals; its whole message must be clear. Goals, subject content, commentary material and concrete examples should to- gether contribute to clearer state governance of the school system. My terms of reference include presenting proposals for when pro- gress should be checked nationally against targets, and particularly in earlier school years than is currently the case. At present, it is not before school year 5 that the syllabi define goals to attain. No national lists of goals for local planning of teaching are given for earlier school years. In instructions to the for Education in , the Government considers that a list of goals should exist for school year 3. for Education has been instructed to formulate goals to attain for school year 3 in mathematics and Swedish, based on the present provisions. In my view, there is no other early school year that is better suited to be a progress check point than school year 3. There is therefore no reason to differ from the Government and I therefore propose that school year 3 become the first occasion on which na- tional progress checks are undertaken. I propose that the next time progress checks are made is in school year 6, in order, among other things, for there to be a suitable time period between school years 3 and 9 and because in the Budget for 2007, the Government an- nounced that grades would be given from school year 6. When this progress check is made in school year 6, the syllabi should stipulate subject content and the level of the knowledge requirement for ac- ceptable achievement in all subjects, while in school year 3, this should primarily apply to mathematics and Swedish. If these na- tional progress check points are introduced into compulsory school every three years, mobility for families with school age chil- dren will be facilitated since the risk of pupils studying different areas within subjects will be reduced. I also consider it appropriate to make progress checks of some of the areas of knowledge in the natural sciences and social studies subject areas in school year 3, but in my view, this requires changes in the subjects offered by compulsory schools. I do not think that it should be taken for granted that the subjects now included in a block of subjects should be the same in the future. should it be taken for granted that the same subjects should be taught at the early stages of compulsory school as those in later years. A review of the compulsory school curriculum is needed and in this connec- tion, the need for possible changes in the subjects offered should be reviewed. The possibility of block grading should be removed In the natural sciences and social studies subject areas, teachers to- day can choose whether they want to grade by subject or by a block of subjects. Experience from this system reveals unfair con- sequences for pupils. In some cases, pupils can receive fewer credits on admission to upper secondary school if they have block grades, and in other cases, the reverse is true. This is why I propose that todays option for giving block grades be removed. Proposals for the follow-up system (Chapter 3) My terms of reference include presenting proposals for adjust- ments to the follow-up system following my proposals for changes of the goal system. An important part of the follow-up system is the national tests. I propose obligatory national tests in Swedish, English and mathematics in the end of school year 6, above school year 9. I also propose obligatory national tests in Swedish and mathematics in the end of school year 3 to assess the pupils progress in knowledge. for Education has been instructed to propose national tests in school year 3 in Swedish and mathematics, while todays national tests in school year 5 are expected to be replaced by tests in school year 6. In order to be able to produce such tests, there must be national knowledge requirements determined for the years in which the tests are to be given. In school years 3 and 6, where no grades are given, this will with todays grading system be a question of knowledge requirements for acceptable achievement, and in school year 9, knowledge requirements for the different grades in the scale. It has with the present syllabi been difficult to base test tasks on all pupils in a given school year having studied a given content. The proposal for a syllabus structure means that syllabi would contain details of subject content, which will make constructing the tests easier, since there will now be content on which to base the tests. At national level, more extensive collection of information from the national test system is considered valuable. As an example, a national collection of results from subject tests in school years 3 and 6 should comprise more schools than todays tests in school year 5, which only comprises some 200 schools. Collection, both nationally and annually, of information about compulsory school pupils, their results in national tests and their final grades at indi- vidual level, should also be considered. This will make it easier to learn more about the different capacities of schools to achieve good results, based on the composition of their pupils. The overall goals of a comprehensive curriculum should be fol- lowed up in periodical and systematic national evaluations. knowledge about how, and to what extent, the curriculum and syl- labi are used in schools is limited, and should also be followed up in national evaluations. Municipal follow-up of results should be improved. school and municipality should, in their regular quality process, analyse and document how successful they have been in achieving the national knowledge requirements. The results of the improved national follow-up may provide support in this work. A systematic follow-up of the results at every school is a necessary element of management by objectives and results. Local follow-up is essential to be able to take remedial measures and to use re- sources better so as to improve results. This should be undertaken by different means. For school years where no nationally stipulated knowledge requirement is given, teachers and principals can agree on a suitable standardisation of form and content in the back- ground material for development dialogues. This will make it pos- sible, at school level, and perhaps also at the level of those respon- sible for the school, to obtain comprehensive documentation that can be used for analyses and conclusions on the development of pupils knowledge in relation to the goals of all subjects and school years. With regard to the results of the national tests and grades set, I regard it as self-evident that every principal takes the initia- tive for a systematic follow-up. National tests should govern grading more extensively than is the case at present. The current substantial disparities between test results and grades set can be questioned. This is why teachers should be able to explain the reasons for the grade they have given and to show evidence to support this, such as how the grade has been affected by and are related to the results of the national test. This is a question that should be considered in the ongoing work at the on a new Education Act. A further means of improving the standards of knowledge assessment may be for two teachers – the person teaching the student, and a co-assessor – to cooperate when correcting the tests, which already takes place on a voluntary basis today. 1.1Other Lpo 94 activities and the connection with Lpf 94 (Chapter 4) My terms of reference include analysing the consequences for all organisations covered by Lpo 94, i.e., the compulsory school sys- tem, other compulsory school forms, pre-school and lei- sure-time centres. Consideration must be given to the needs of these types of school and activities in the proposals. Education for pupils with learning disabilities In view of the limited supporting information existing when the Government decided, in Government 1992/93:220 on the cur- riculum, that education for pupils with learning disabilities should have their own syllabi, I consider that a more detailed review is re- quired of how the need for syllabi can best be provided for. Are there to be special syllabi for education for pupils with learning disabilities or can compulsory school syllabi apply, provided that account is taken of the individual students learning disability? The grading system also needs to be examined, as well as needs for syl- labi for education for children with severe learning disabilities. One means of testing whether it would work to have the same syllabi for schools for pupils with learning disabilities and compulsory schools is to start a pilot project. Such a pilot project requires, however, special regulations on how to apply compulsory school syllabi; for example, how individual account of the varying abilities of pupils is to be taken. A comprehensive curriculum is proposed for compulsory school, containing both overall goals and syllabi. For similar reasons, a comprehensive curriculum for education for pupils with learning disabilities could be considered. The overall goals of compulsory school can largely be the same for schools for pupils with learning disabilities. The special goals that currently apply to education for pupils with learning disabilities in Lpo 94 could be integrated into a possible curriculum for education for pupils with learning disabili- ties. Like compulsory school, education for pupils with learning disabilities should be able to have a comprehensive curriculum containing syllabi or a similar steering document. An alternative would be for the syllabi of education for pupils with learning dis- abilities to be included in a comprehensive curriculum for compul- sory school. Which alternative is selected depends on the results of a possible inquiry on the need for special syllabi for education for pupils with learning disabilities. I do not consider that my remit includes producing a basis for taking a position between these al- ternatives, and am therefore not presenting any proposals. Special schools for pupils with impaired hearing My proposal for a goal structure for compulsory school could also apply to special schools. The subjects that differ from those of compulsory school, i.e. sign language and movement and drama, are considered to be of such a nature that they can be compared with language and music and can therefore have syllabi based on the same principles that I propose for compulsory school. My pro- posal for a changed curriculum concept could also apply to special schools. Account should be taken of the present goal to attain in special schools for pupils with impaired hearing in Lpo 94, i.e., that pupils are bilingual and can communicate in writing in English, in the curriculum revision considered necessary for compulsory school. My proposal for a changed curriculum concept could also apply to school. A curriculum revision should take account of todays goal to attain in the school in Lpo 94, i.e., that each pupil who has attended the school should have a deep knowledge of the cultural heritage and can speak, read and write the lan- guage. Similarly, it should be possible to apply the syllabi set up for compulsory school to school from this point on.