Purvis (1981), discusses what was thought of at the time as the proper role of men and women of different classes, this resulted in different curricula being taught to different groups of people in the nineteenth century, preparing them for their pre-destined roles in society. More recently the argument has included race. A development from Purvis’s study should discuss issues surrounding a curriculum designed and functioning in one country, being exported to another country that has a different culture and a different set of pressure groups. City and Guilds has become known in TSI as having examinations that are culturally biased in favour of the UK national. The IGCSE syllabus designed in the UK and also being exported around the world has gone a long way in an effort to combat cultural bias. We have seen curriculum being developed for sinister reasons and selfish political agendas, america government agencies developed curricula materials specifically to be used by the Afghan Mujahedeen during the 1980’s, in a view to de-sensitise their nations youth to the horrors of war.
There is a voice in TSI asking if the UAE should take on a curriculum from the west, when it is known that the past successes of the Islamic empire are ignored, and only western role models are ‘immortalised’ for their discoveries and advances. Thus taking away a feeling nostalgia and pride from the students of the UAE / Muslim world.
Curriculum in Further Education colleges
Robertson (1993, p.73), is critical of the Further Education curriculum in the UK, in that having the perceived responsibility in providing vocational education, should have a direct link on national prosperity:
‘A consensus exists on the inadequacy of prevailing arguments to protect Britain from inexorable economic decline. The self-attributed strengths of British post-secondary and higher education do not appear to be commensurate with national prosperity, technological inventiveness, exceptional national leadership or public ease.’
Continuing the argument, in the days of industrial mass production at the turn of the 19th century onwards, there was a strong divide in education between the specialised or academic learner and vocational learner, and there consequent roles in employment reflected this clear division with little cross over. Nowadays, the UK industrial market needs a broadly academic and a broadly skilled workforce as described by Piore and Sabel (1984) :
‘Designers must be so broadly qualified that they can envision product and production together (something not learnt by) book learning alone…… And production workers must be so broadly skilled……to be able to collaborate with designers to solve the problems that inevitably arise in production’.
‘The Market for vocational education and training has to respond more quickly to the changing needs of employers and individuals.’ Employment Department 1993, p.6).
Edwards (1993), confirms that curriculum is not responding to the nationally changing labour market and work patterns.
‘Industry changes in work patterns have been the breakdown of job demarcations and pyramid bureaucracies, and the need for multi-skilled flexible workers able to take up new tasks.’
It can be argued that NVQ qualifications have gone some way to address the academic/vocational divide and resulted in an increase in participation in further education, higher attainments and improved skills. Still in the UK it is noticed that those students with higher grades opt to take the A’level route which is considered more academic and prestigious by both universities and employers, whereas those with lower grades are accepted onto GNVQ / NVQ courses which are considered less challenging and less prestigious. Perhaps M. Young’s (1993 p.203) argument for introducing one qualification that allows a compromise between vocational and academic education would both directly increase national prosperity with more talented students not shying away from a vocational course, and equally ‘less successful’ students at 16 years of age would still have an opportunity to get involved in more academic pursuits, allowing more of the nation contributing inspirationally, innovatively and creatively. TSI is in dire need of pursuing its goals as laid down by its mission statement to focus more on the practical side of a vocational course.
MANAGING LEARNING.
We must never forget that ‘all schools exist primarily to provide all their pupils with quality learning experiences’. Lofthouse in Bush (1994, p.123)
Habermas (1972) discusses how schools are used as mechanisms of social control, serving the needs of the staff more than the needs of the students.
Lecturers must nowadays look to provide the environment for active learning with experience, encouraging pupils to take more responsibility for their learning. As Caldwell and Spinks (1992, p.7) mention
‘The dominant principle of organisation has shifted, from management in order to control to leadership in order to bring out the best in people and respond quickly to change’.
This can only really occur when the ‘people’ (which can be applied to staff as well as students) that Caldwell and Spinks refer to have a good understanding of what is required and feel ownership in the choice in method undertaken to achieve certain goals. ‘People’ must also be able to notice weaknesses and feel confident and comfortable to implement change. Relating this to TSI, lecturers should be part of the whole collaborated process of strategy and implementation.
West-Burnham (1992) proceeds to draw the conclusion that in order to understand your customers or clients (referring to students here), you need information about their values, attitudes, educational level, expectations, preferences, social situation and commitment. He has ‘hit the nail on the head’ with regard to having a student centred learning approach to managing the curriculum, these principles come through clearly when it comes to discussing quality and total quality management.
Shackleton (1988, p.56) states
‘…. An outright learner-led approach is now essential in order to redefine the role and function of colleges, and of college lecturers’
Young (1995, p.175) explains that a
‘…learner-centred approach cannot be just about access and choice; it must be about new pedagogies; new relationships between teachers and learners and the development of new learning strategies’.
Lumby (1995) talks about guidance and counselling and development of core skills as now becoming the central spine of the college, rather than subject specific work was central and guidance/core skills was just an add-on. As a result there must be greater flexibility in the way that students and lecturers time is organised. There would be a need to staff colleges for longer hours, for more weeks of the year, using lecturing and support staff in less segregated roles than previously, in the context of modularised, credit-rated, outcomes based curriculum. Learning will shift from the majority of the students’ time being spent in groups in classrooms being ‘taught’ to a much more diverse spread of learning methodologies.
Flexible learning is tightly linked to the use of outcome-based approaches - as is the case with NVQ’s and GNVQ’s. A word of warning was expressed to the flexible learning FE’s with individual student learning pathways by a faculty head in Lumby (1995),
‘The punters don’t particularly like workshops. It’s a culture shift for learners. They don’t appreciate having to do things for themselves’
There is an overwhelming feeling that TSI could never become a flexible learning institute for two main reasons, firstly its nature as a military college with clear hierarchical divisions and secondly its perceived underlying need to be a place for social control.
Wherever you go in the UK, you have no choice in the curriculum, you must follow the National curriculum on the whole, it could be argued that the Government could not trust those in the field of education to provide a satisfactory solution to the educational needs of pupils in the UK. Becher (1989, p.52) argues that underlying rationale for introducing the National curriculum in the UK was to remind professionals working in education that teaching and learning must serve the needs of the national economy, implying that teachers can’t be trusted with devising a curriculum for their schools. Becher goes on to say how different types of schools would react to an imposed centralised curriculum. TSI came under the hierarchical type of school heading where he states,
‘The school with a strong hierarchical structure…will opt to play safe, adopting a coercive managerial approach in which maximizing test scores and examination results becomes the most important consideration. It will be inclined to follow the stipulations of the National Curriculum in a generally slavish manner, keeping rigidly to specific subject boundaries and following the recommended time allocations for each’.
We can go on to argue that schools are a form of social control. Lofthouse in Bush (1994), develops this by saying:
‘The collection of test data enables any central authority to monitor the progress of pupils and, by implication, test the efficiency of the school and the teachers working within it’.
Developing this argument is the implication that if teachers are monitored so closely and are held accountable, especially seen in the case of the Victorian experience and Robert Lowe’s (1867) Revised Code which set up a system of ‘payment by results’, led to a widespread cheating and collusion among teachers and their pupils.
Aspinwall et al. (1992, p14) extend the definition of the purpose of formative feedback :
‘…evaluation needs to be seen as an integral part of the management process…It must be a continuous subject of attention and must be soundly embedded in the structure and culture of the organization. If it is a stage in the process it can be put off; if it is integral to the process it cannot’.
The issue is how to review the effectiveness of those things that can be measured e.g.:
- The appropriateness of teaching and learning strategies
- The effectiveness of meetings, pastoral procedures and communication systems.
- The extent to which stated outcomes have been achieved.
- The degree of conformity to agreed standards and procedures.
- The efficient and effective use of resources.
West-Burnham (1994), neatly summarises the relationship between inspection and evaluation, assurance and total quality:
Inspection and evaluation identify what has gone wrong and allow remedial action to be instituted or confirm and reinforce that which is known to be working well and effectively.
Assurance establishes systems and processes to meet specifications so as to minimise the possibility of wastage or loss.
Total quality works to ensure that every aspect of the organisation and every employee is focussed all the time in meeting and then exceeding customer requirements.
INVESTIGATION.
The research tool elected for use was by a questionnaire (Refer to Appendix B for the actual questionnaire used). It became apparent whilst discussing with colleagues attitudes towards curriculum in TSI, that without an anonymous individualised form of data collection, many views would be ignored, ‘kept secret’ and/or could easily be influenced by the dynamics of any group discussion. It was also important to empower the respondent to freely give his views, or as Johnson (1997, p.37) says about questionnaires they are
‘in the hands of the respondent and is completed by him or her’.
The questions (actually statements) themselves were designed from the Literature review and those initial thoughts from discussions with colleagues to highlight curriculum management issues in TSI. Piloting the questionnaire highlighted weaknesses in the survey, as respondents sometimes requested clarity to understand the statements.
Rather than a simple yes/no response type questionnaire, it was more accurate to rate responses, indicating to some degree the strength of agreement of a statement. Many of the statements and resulting responses dealt with peoples opinions and attitudes, which rarely produce such polarised responses as yes or no. There were 6 possible responses: strongly agree, moderately agree, neutral, moderately disagree, strongly disagree and unable to rate.
Due to the impersonal nature of the questionnaire and the implicit difficulty in sensing whether responses were complete true feelings of the respondent, it became important to follow up the questionnaire with interviews, ensuring that the full benefit had been achieved from the questionnaire. Bell (1987, p.70), suggests that a skilled interviewer can ‘follow up ideas, probe responses and investigate motives and feelings, which the questionnaire cannot do’. Those personal elements such as tone of voice, body language and facial expression can give an indication of thoughts that can be followed up by further questioning for clarity (Johnson 1994, p.45).
Interviews were semi-structured allowing the individual to speak freely about his views and giving the interviewer a chance to use probing questions to achieve a clearer understanding by more complex responses from the interviewee. As a rapport already existed between interviewer and interviewee the need for a fully structured interview seemed inefficient, when so much more information could be extracted. The freedom of an unstructured interview relies heavily on the skills of the interviewer in extracting specialist knowledge Johnson (1994, p.47), which was seen as inappropriate in this study. On the Whole the semi-structured interview worked well, in that many of the interviewees were focussed in their thinking from the questionnaire. Through the interviews it was noticed that a lot more thought had gone into their questionnaire responses than was initially envisaged, probably due to the resulting discussions that took place around the institution from the questionnaire.
The sample was limited to a total of twenty lecturers and the follow up interviews to ten. All questionnaires were completed as respondents were within easy access and were often gently encouraged to complete the survey.
Triangulation of the data is important in strengthening the validity of the results. Cohen and Manion (1994, p.233) stressed that
‘The researcher needs to be confident that the data generated is not simply artefacts of one specific method of collection’.
In this simple study by using two methods of data collection a better understanding of perceptions has been achieved, in comparison to only using a questionnaire, or if only interviews had been the source of data.
In order to help aggregate the data into an entity, mean values for questionnaire responses were calculated and used to analyse views. Responses that were ‘strongly agree’ were assigned a rating of 1, ‘moderately agree’ was given a 2, ‘neutral’ – 3, ‘moderately disagree’ – 4, ‘strongly disagree’ – 5. The calculated mean value was then rounded to the nearest whole number value and then translated back to the appropriate response. For example, for statement 1 – ‘The aims and objectives highlighted from the mission statement are being achieved and regularly evaluated’, 0 responded ‘strongly agree’, 1 – ‘moderately agree’, 5 – ‘neutral’, 6 – ‘moderately disagree’, 8 – ‘strongly disagree’.
So the mean value becomes: (0x1) + (1x2) + (2x3) + (3x4) + (14x5) = 4.50
20
Rounding gives us a value of 5, which translates to a mean response for our sample that ‘strongly disagree’ with the statement. Where one person responded with ‘unable to rate’ the sample was reduced to 19 and reasons for this response were then investigated at the interview stage.
ANALYSIS.
Aims and objectives of TSI.
Part of a curriculum managers’ role is to act as a link between strategic plans and reality by questioning, modifying and adapting a prescribed curriculum to meet the needs of students as learners. A sensible approach for any curriculum manager investigating whether a successful curriculum has been implemented, would be to evaluate whether or not aims and objectives of the institution are being met.
It is unanimous that those official educational purposes of TSI laid down by the mission statement have not been realised in practice, students are coming back once training is complete with a very academic background from universities, with little practical ability to operate and maintain the various equipment of the armed forces. These students return to join the ranks and share similar bureaucratic roles with the current officers in TSI. From this alone it must be said that TSI is far from achieving its curriculum goals indicated by the mission statement.
It was surprising to discover from statement 1 that most lecturers said they were unaware of the aims and objectives of TSI, their focus was to teach the City and Guilds syllabus given to them. It was clear that curriculum managers at TSI have made little effort in spreading the institution’s aims and objectives down the management tree, which are fatally viewed by administrators and lecturers as entities distinct to actual practices that occur in the classroom.
Collaboration and Ownership of the Curriculum.
A common feeling amongst lecturers was that they were working in isolation and rarely felt part of the institution as a whole, there was very little collaboration or cooperation in solving problems. From statement 2, there seems to be little ownership of the curriculum. It is important for curriculum managers to encourage colleagues to reflect, debate and agree collective interpretations of how the curriculum should be taught and the range of experiences which students should be offered. A consequence of ignoring this was noticed in TSI when investigating statement 3. All lecturers responded to statement 3 as strongly disagreeing to seeing the curriculum and or materials being reviewed and updated regularly. After probing questions, It was found that lecturers of the same subject area were not even communicating with each other, they would teach to the best of their abilities, modifying the curriculum independently, but this would not be a shared, coordinated effort, which was ironic, as lecturers said they wouldn’t dream about working in this way in their previous jobs.
It was of little surprise that lecturers felt confident to implement change when weaknesses were noticed (statement 4) within the classroom itself, as they were rarely evaluated or checked for classroom practices. Lecturers felt powerless when there was a need to implement change from outside the classroom, equally they had little faith in curriculum managers when there was a need to make such changes effectively (statement 5).
Student centred learning.
Lecturers that were new to TSI said that after their initial insecurities of whether they were doing a good job had passed, they soon realised that nobody would be checking, praising or condemning their decisions in relation to teaching the syllabus, and so worked out the least stressful and most efficient way of working. Many lecturers admitted that this resulted in a situation (statements 6,7 and 8) that is in contradiction to those values of a ‘student centred learning approach filled with experiential learning opportunities’ as described in the literature review Shackleton (1988, p.56) and Young (1995, p.175). TSI seems to be ‘serving the needs of the staff more than the needs of the students’ described by Habermas (1972). There is a valid argument that TSI has become a ‘mechanism of social control’ (statement 9), from statement 10 lecturers thought that students were there because they were paid a high salary to be at the college, rather than wanting to develop their skills, it was easy to continuously fail exams, repeat a year and in a way make a career of failing exams, student’s salaries would not really be affected.
Through interviews lecturers even though hesitant to admit it, would say that their teaching values have been compromised for an easier life, as what is really valued by administrators are, “the number of students we can get through examinations.” This idea was filtered down to students, “rather than experiencing learning, they just want to be told what the right answers are, without really understanding.” This was also indicated by lecturer’s response to statement 11 where a seemingly appropriate vocational syllabus for TSI was taught in a more academic manner. It is interesting here to quote a faculty head in Lumby (1995),
‘The punters don’t particularly like workshops. It’s a culture shift for learners. They don’t appreciate having to do things for themselves’
Many of the lecturers felt that they were only really scrutinized when it came to examination results, as this would have an indirect influence on whether their contracts would be renewed at TSI. Examinations would often test memory rather than skills. Lecturers mentioned that this was the case as many students were new to the English language. Some argued that exams were purposely made easy or scores adjusted to indicate a high pass rate, at the cost of a good standard of education. This can be related even though not as widespread, to the pitfalls of Robert Lowe’s (1867) ‘payment by results’ and resulting cheating that occurred.
Does TSI curriculum have a direct link with National development?
Statements 12 and 13 relate to Robertson’s (1993, p.73) view that a further education curriculum (in the UK) should have a direct link on the national prosperity. It would seem that lecturers at TSI moderately disagree that there is a direct link with the curriculum at TSI and national prosperity/leadership.
UAE is a very young country that has undergone incredible development during the last 30 years, unfortunately, the country has been totally reliant on expatriate expertise educated from colleges outside of the UAE in nearly all industries. The UAE government has acknowledged the waste of their own populations human resources, and is recently trying to redress the balance developing institutions for their citizens, in the hope that one day their curriculum will reflect vocational and academic development to meet the needs of the country, rather than importing human resources, whilst their own population become idle.
The UAE government has ploughed financial resources into TSI, which in turn has imported a the City and Guilds curriculum from the UK, with all its criticisms in the UK on vocational education, the question arises is TSI just inheriting the curriculum problems of the UK with cultural bias on top? Which produces an education system that is failing to develop the national prosperity. Rather it is producing academically trained officers with little practical understanding or vocational skills to get fully involved with industry. They are still very reliant on cheap labour form the Indian sub-continent and the far east. The UAE has its own unique problems with developing a work force, as a generous redistribution of wealth generated from oil has made the youth very comfortable (indicated by statement 10), that drive to develop through struggle seen in poorer countries seems to be absent. A work force of managers seems to be the will of the population, whereas the government would like to see dependence on foreign manpower to decrease.
Understanding the students.
Statement 14 comes from the West-Burnham (1992) view of understanding your client (referring here to students). Lecturers responded to this statement as neutral, one non-Muslim lecturer from the UK said, ‘we have barriers here especially with regard to language and culture, we would be closer in understanding students in the UK, but at TSI we are restricted from spending time with them outside of the classroom, and students are convinced by military officers that ‘good students’ are silent in the classroom sitting in regimented equidistant rows facing the whiteboard.’ One Muslim lecturer from the UK surprisingly commented that, ‘It isn’t as crucial to get to know the students compared with those in the UK, students here get confidence and complacent from the fact that nothing really matters apart from their Islamic learning and deeds, and perhaps a student centred learning approach requires a more motivated ‘self-focussed’ type of student.’ There is a view that little competition instilled between students, and the financially comfortable lifestyle they have been given, has had a detrimental effect on their motivation.
It was encouraging to note that some lecturers still wanted to understand their clients as West-Burnham (1992) puts it and wanted training to eradicate misconceptions or confirm ideas about students, informally UAE military staff were more than happy to talk endlessly presenting a ‘rosy’ picture of their culture. Formally no analysis or comparisons of understanding the culture were allowed to take place, in case western staff started to get a negative view or propagate an unofficial view.
Inspection and Evaluation.
All lecturers responded as strongly disagree to the usefulness of evaluation of lecturers teaching abilities (statement 15). The biannual classroom observations for each lecturer were carried out by military officers that knew very little about education, and definitely had no training in how to assess a lecturers performance. They would fill in tick boxes against certain criteria as what can be only thought of as randomly. These were stored in a confidential file never to be used again, unless administrators wanted to find evidence to cancel an employment contract. The whole point of improving and sharing good practice, comparing strategy with practice were all ignored.
All the issues raised here point to the need for a better and more useful, evaluation process as a start, then for curriculum managers to look at the bigger picture of inspection, assurance and total quality. The City and Guilds syllabus had been promoted to the status of the TSI curriculum, to the detriment of the college, staff and students. TSI doesn’t need another syllabus masquerading as a curriculum, it needs a curriculum in the fullest sense of the word, as expressed by the FEU (1989).
CONCLUSIONS.
A syllabus can easily be imported into TSI and to date TSI has chosen to run with a City and Guilds syllabus. There are growing concerns in TSI of a relatively low success rate, a committee made of officers and administrators have pinned the blame on the C&G syllabus itself. Hopefully this study has gone some way to highlight that just by replacing C&G with an alternative syllabus – TAFE, will do very little to improve students success rate. It would seem that TSI needs much more than just a syllabus, they need a curriculum in accordance with the FEU’s (1989) view which includes the idea that
‘…Curriculum involves all those processes which facilitate, or if they go wrong, inhibit learning. It thus can be seen to include the means of recruitment to a programme and progression from it, the ethos of a learning institution, and learning styles, in addition to content.’
Findings from this study recommend that curriculum managers should focus on the following issues, this is by no means an exhaustive list of ways to improve standards, it only addresses certain issues that lecturers at TSI feel are more important than introducing a different syllabus.
- Create a closer link between those involved with forming strategies and lecturers who have direct contact with the end users, and give them opportunities to bring in ideas and/or dispel misconceptions.
- Curriculum managers must ensure that aims and objectives of the institution are understood by all, only once people know what the end is, can they start working towards it.
- Curriculum managers must create a feeling of collaboration and ownership for lecturers in developing a curriculum. Essentially by bringing people together, whether to form working teams or social groups.
- Effective inspection and evaluation must become an integral part of the management process with the students in mind. The process must become embedded in the culture of TSI.
- Classroom observations should have a relevant purpose in improving standards, not just used to create a culture of being watched.
- A student centred learning approach needs to be looked at. Student’s requirements must be addressed by talking with the students, if only to make them feel part of the process of managing a curriculum, hopefully instilling responsibility for their own learning.
- Lecturers must be given a better induction to TSI arming them with an appreciation of the culture, expectations and social situations of the students especially, but also the military staff that they must interact with positively.
- Communication throughout TSI is probably one of the greatest problems TSI has to overcome. It creates mistrust, deflecting staff and students alike away from the real purposes of the organisation, focussing on politics and bad feelings.
- The whole procedure of educating students in TSI must take on a more practical nature in tune with the aims and objectives of the college. Assessment procedures should reflect the training needs of students, not only their ability to pass written examinations.
Hilditch (1993, p.162) summarises well the feelings of lecturers towards curriculum managers,
‘the senior management team needs to ensure that the curriculum is well planned, that changes are implemented and delivery is monitored’.
Some lecturers held an interesting view that the fear of curriculum change (more work, timetabling….) had the effect of fewer people complaining about the current curriculum. It is time TSI focussed more on the needs of the student rather than focussing on the needs of the staff.
Nationwide in the UAE locals are still taking administration roles, rather than practical engineering type roles, the talented foreigners are still relied upon, maybe some trainers would like to ensure their jobs and perhaps engineer teaching, learning and/or industrial experience (supported by a majority of locals not wanting to get their hands dirty) in such a way, that they keep their jobs for longer.
Recommendations for further study.
This has turned out to be a large topic, and TSI could be a great centre of education. To improve the institution as a whole it would be nice to turn this into a case study, presenting findings from this investigation to the commander and then try to implement structural changes especially related to communication, eradicating unnecessary chains of command, instilling a sense of being part of the whole collaborated process and implementing a valid inspection and evaluation process that allows remedial action to be implemented where necessary or confirm and reinforce that which is known to be working well and effectively. Then going back to lecturers and students to see if a higher success rate has been achieved whilst keeping the City and Guilds Syllabus.
Appendix A: Results of staff survey.
Appendix B: Questionnaire.
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