How important is curriculum in determining a school's international Essay

How important is curriculum in determining a school's international status - Essay Example Further, for high school students that are graduating, they would often look for schools in other countries to enrol in for their college education. Most of the time, they choose schools by popularity and International status. But the question is, how is curriculum related or is a factor in determining the International status of an educational institution? We will dwell on the answers as we go further along. This paper will also discuss the significance of curriculum, the theories and basis of curriculum, the different approaches to learning, elements of curriculum, effects of changes in curriculum and the relation of curriculum to international acclaim. Curriculum as a Work Plan In every aspect of life, planning is required. Whether it is as simple as planning for a family vacation or things to do during the holiday break, plans play an important role in achieving objectives at the end. And in deciding on education, there should be a formal framework to be followed to ensure that t he end product will come out as planned. Plans are made and drawn to be followed to ensure success. And careful planning is very much needed especially if an educational institution is to offer learning and development to its students for years. Curriculum is the plan for educational institutions (Pinar 2003). ... Not only will it focus on the academics of the students but will include the other aspects of a student’s life like extracurricular activities, social activities, learning ability and other learning needs and (Abbott, Hughes, Williamson 2001) agrees. Further, a curriculum does not only set a plan for its students but for the mentors and teachers too. It will include an estimate measure of time regarding how many sessions should a subject matter take, the workload of teachers and their capability to teach the subject matter at hand. All of these constitute to the curriculum of a school and now, we can move forward and talk about the significance or importance of curriculum in a school setting. Significance of Curriculum in Schools As previously discussed, curriculum serves as a work plan on how a school attains objective goals at the end of a course. So, why is this important in the different levels of schooling namely elementary or grade school, high school and college or high er education. For the elementary level, the curriculum is drawn with consideration of all the learning needs of a child. At this stage (Waller & Clark 2007) says children will still have different learning capabilities and different ways of adapting to teaching methods. Such considerations will be included in the drafting of the curriculum. Students in this level will have no choice on what subjects to take as they are being geared towards studying a universal curriculum. The reason for this is that grade school students should have a complete development regarding all subject matter. In the high school level, there are more choices given to the student. Although the freedom of subjects is still limited, there is still an exercise of