An educational offer that can be an economic issue

The educational content offering could be analyzed from the perspective of its relationship with the school market, its regulatory, management, and financing objectives, and its relationship to the autonomy of institutions. What is the economic model underlying the provision of educational content? Curriculum design can be regulated, unregulated, or planned by public authorities.

Regulated competition assumes that the products offered are homogeneous (equal caliber, nature, quality [6] ) and totally mobile. This model implies per capita financing and free choice of establishment; it is guided by the interest of the agents, the atomicity of the offer (no monopoly) and transparency towards consumers.

Since no legislation imposes homogeneity, competition is said to be “unregulated.” Funding and autonomy criteria are supposed to guarantee lower costs.

On the contrary , in a model of planning by public authorities, the autonomy of schools is limited, registrations are planned and regulated by a “school map”. Teaching content, textbooks and teaching time are imposed.

In Europe, even where compulsory education is governed by a rather competitive model, as in Belgium, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom, we find that study programmes are regulated by a higher authority. However, institutions have greater autonomy regarding teaching times and methods, distribution, and the choice of options or textbooks (Delhaxhe, 2006).

Research on the treatment of content in school textbooks sheds light on this organization of educational provision. While potentially revealing political, economic, and cultural motivations, textbooks are subject to market, resource, and power constraints (such as conflicts of interest). Textbooks are not only teaching aids but also sociocultural objects, repositories of values ​​shared by the community.

The development process

1. Lewy (1978), who was interested in the development and evaluation of curricula (school programs), particularly in the late 1970s, proposed a typical process for the successful development of school programs, in three stages:

 planning, program outline: choice of objectives, content, teaching and learning strategies;

 preparation of teaching materials: creation, organization into study cycles, testing, modification based on the results of these tests;

 implementation: dissemination, quality control, re-examination of programs.

As Mr. Crahay (2011) points out, ”  it would be interesting to know how many curricula have been developed strictly following this approach  “!

Other schemes, intended to compare study programs, consider several aspects common to the processes of program construction (ideological and cultural influences, planning and development, implementation and reception by the student) and their translation into reality (from the point of view of decision-makers, teachers or students) but also research methods (Adamson & Morris, 2010).

In England , the 1988 National Curriculum (currently being revised) defines four key stages structuring the 10 levels of compulsory education. It sets out disciplines, thematic areas including cross-curricular themes (such as awareness of economics and industry), and codifies knowledge and skills by area before developing progression models (Oates, 2011).

In France , at the same time (late 1980s), the process of drafting new curricula took about ten months. In September, a framework letter was sent to the expert group set up for the occasion by the National Curriculum Council (CNP) and the Directorate of School Education (DESCO). Between October and February, the group drafted a proposal under the watchful eye of the DESCO ad hoc office . The proposal was then submitted to the CNP, but especially to the teachers concerned (national consultation in March-April). The final text was drafted in May, administered in June, and validated or not by the minister in July.

A prescriptive dimension (more or less firm)

In developing standards, the goal of states has been to define norms ”  that provide an understanding of what students are expected to learn, so that teachers and parents know how to help them  “

This shift in curriculum to a common core has changed the discourse on teaching content, introducing the “real world”, useful knowledge for better positioning in a competitive world.