T

he Culture and Elementary and Secondary Education Ministry has announced that schools that have applied the latest 2013 curriculum (known as K13) for the last three semesters since it was introduced should continue to do so, while other schools should revert to the previous 2006 curriculum.

Debates highlight the reasoning behind the decisions quite apart from the advantages and shortcomings of each curriculum.

Some countries intent on changing their national curriculum usually conduct experimental research and choose some schools as experimental samples.

They apply the new draft curriculum in those schools and investigate whether the curriculum is really better than the previous one and whether it is applicable.

With such an experiment process the authorities seek to understand the weaknesses and strengths of the curriculum in question, so they can make corrections and revisions where needed before deciding to apply the new curriculum for the entire nation.

K13 apparently lacked such experimental research. The introduction was too rapid, virtually no experimentation was conducted, thus revealing the lack of preparation of teachers, books, the system for grading students, understanding of expected core competences and in translating contents from the required core competence of each taught subject.

So the government decision to allow some schools to continue using K13 can be termed as experimental research, aiming to discover whether K13 is actually better in real classrooms, and to revise where necessary before applying it across all schools.

Because the process of assessing K13 is an experimental research, the schools should really adhere to the curriculum. They have to investigate and note all the strengths and weaknesses of K13. They should not manipulate results because of politically related goals.

And the schools should be proud to be selected as national research samples.

Other schools with no experience in applying K13 have been instructed to used the 2006 curriculum; hence no disruption to the learning process should be expected. More teachers will need to be trained if it is decided that K13 will be adopted nation-wide.

What should the government do? Pending results of the experiment, the government should first ensure control over the research and its results.

By doing so, we hope that K13 is properly studied and revised.

Second, the government should prepare the national tests that are appropriate to K13 and the 2006 curriculum so that students will not worry about their national exams, given that schools are using different curricula.

Third, train teachers in both curricula so that they are able to help students actively and creatively in their learning process, to enable a high standard of competence either in the cognitive, affective and moral aspects.