The new education law defines school cycle changes and modifies the instruments of school curriculum. For this purpose the Ministry of Education could have adapted the Curricular Adjustment recently approved, but has preferred to develop a new proposal for curricular bases, in the case of mathematics, notably delays the school level that certain content area addressed in comparison with the current curriculum.
All curriculum change must be accompanied by research evidence to justify it and a process of debate in the community to support it. Although the draft proposal was circulated among some academics and experts, this has not been talked over in an open debate as to show and discuss the reasons and evidence to justify it. This is especially critical in regard to the reduction and delay of contents in Mathematics.
If this proposal is implemented Chilean students will have a curriculum that will leave them with an up to one year delay in relation to the Curricular Adjustment and to countries reference herein. Clearly, the team that developed the proposal had Singapore’s curriculum in sight, but the Chilean proposal presents a systematic delay between one and two years in comparison with Singapore’s, being the gap more pronounced in numbers and operations, which is central at the level of primary education.
The new proposal is a step back from the current curriculum, and not consistent with the efforts being made by our country to be subject to international quality standards in education, participating in assessments and implementing improvements in the preparation of teachers. Lowering the level of demand of our curriculum will increase the intolerable gaps in our school system, it will be the most vulnerable people who will be limited to the achievement of these lower expectations.
| Anita Araneda (PUC) Eugenio Chandía (CMM) Pablo Dartnell (CIAE – CMM) Patrick Felmer (CIAE – CMM) Ruth Galindo (Universidad Playa Ancha) Maria Jose Martinez Z. (PUC) Raul Gormaz (CMM) Nancy Lacourly (CIAE – CMM) Alejandro Lopez (Universidad Andres Bello) |
Salomé Martínez (CMM) Andres Ortiz (U. Concepción) Hector Ramirez (CMM) Pierre-Paul Romagnoli (U Andres Bello) Ernesto San Martin (PUC) Gloria Schwarze (PUC) Leonor Varas (CIAE – CMM) Roberto Vidal (Universidad Alberto Hurtado) Zanocco Pierina (U. Sto. Tomas) |
