Understanding a competency-based curriculum and education: the Zambian perspective.
Date
2019
Authors
Mulenga, Innocent Mutale
Kabombwe, Yvonne Malambo
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Lexicography and Terminology
Abstract
The rapid and intricate changes in the labour
industry in the global community in the last
decades such as technological adavancements
have brought about significant challenges and
novel responsibilities especially to the field of
curriculum development and education. The past
education traditionally thinking of acquiring
as much knowledge as possible has hence been
overtaken by the new task of modern society which
is exposed to an immense amount of knowledge
and information. The new challenge in education is
therefore to select the highest quality of knowledge
and make effective use of it. Thus, a curriculum
being a means through which education systems
help its citizens acquire desirable knowledge,
skills, values and attitudes, must seek to overcome
the narrow-minded past of traditional syllabi or
written plans and to focus on providing learners
with the ability to acquire, develop and apply
knowledge, values and attitudes which should
lead to the utilization of skills. In order to meet
these concerns, a number of countries in Africa,
such as South Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya,
Mozambique Zimbabwe and Zambia have since
the year 2000 moved away from a content based
curriculum to competency or outcomes-based
curriculum in their education systems. However,
the majority of ideas and arguments regarding a
competency-based curriculum still remain as mere
discourse and have yet to demonstrate how key
competencies can be developed by learners through
a school curriculum. Such a situation has partly
been propelled by the lack of understanding of what
a competency-based curriculum is all about. Using
some examples, from the Zambian experience of
curriculum review which commenced in 2013 and
concluded in 2017, scholars in this paper explain
the key principles that constitute a competencybased curriculum, using examples from the 2013
Zambian Curriculum Framework Policy (ZCFP)
and the Teacher’s Curriculum Implementation
Guide (TCIG). After making a distinction between
competence and competency, the authors provide
a historical and fundamental premise of a
competency-based education. The measurements
of intent in a competency-based curriculum have
been explained too while a detailed description of
the components of a competency curriculum has
been given to shade more light on the concept and
how the curricular in question can be assessed.
Description
Keywords
Competency. , Authentic assessment. , Curriculum development.