Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 1
Curriculum Change
Concept of Change
Change is a constant law nature. It always brings improvement. It always occurs continuously. Technological
advancement and explosion of knowledge is the basic reason of varying style of change. Change is an ongoing
almost unconscious process that involves reworking familiar elements into new relationship.
Curriculum change or Revision
Curriculum revision means making the curriculum different in some way, to give it a new position or direction.
This often means alteration to its philosophy by way of its aims and objectives, reviewing the content included,
revising its methods and re-thinking its evaluator procedures.
Forces Driving Changes:
 Community
 Technology
 Political Conditions
 Economical Condition
 Global transformation
 Complexity: competing demands of governments
and interest groups
 Local need
 Staff dissatisfaction
 Parental Demands
 Student demands – are all students achieving
/participating
 Standards – can they be maintained in view of the
challenges of new courses?
 Leadership - meaningful change and curriculum
evolution
 Demands of the culture, the society, and the
expectations of the population being served.
 Environmental
Drivers for curriculum change:
National Imposition
Local Need
Staff Dissatisfaction
Parental Demands

Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 2
Student Demand-are all students achieving/participating.
Standards-can they have maintained in a view of the challenges of new courses?
Leadership-Meaningful change and curriculum evaluation.
Factors influencing the Change in Curriculum
▪ Population growth
▪ Population pattern
▪ Move towards urbanization
▪ Consumption of natural resources
▪ Increasing in Government control in health care
▪ Increasing need for health professional to work with other professionals as well as the client system
▪ Increasing the professionalization of health workers
▪ Increasing socialization of health field
▪ Increasing supply of the health workers perhaps resulting in more supply
▪ Rapid obsolescence of practice, skills and knowledge level
Need to Change the Curriculum
1. To restructure the curriculum according to the needs, interests or abilities of the learner.
2. To eliminate unnecessary units, teaching methods and contents.
3. To introduce latest and update methods of teaching and content, new knowledge and practices.
4. To add or delete number of clinical hours of instruction.
5. To correlate between the student’s theory courses and clinical learning practices.
6. To select clinical learning experiences base on the objectives rather than on the service needs of the hospital.
7. The students themselves receive little or no experience in assuming responsibilities or in making choices,
everything is decided for them by the teacher or the administrator.
Major Types of Curriculum Change
1- Empirical Rational:
Stress is laid on the need for change and competences to implement. These changes do not occur at school
level as they are not capable of bringing such change.
2- Normative-re-educative Strategies:
It is based on the rationality and intelligence of humans. This kind of change can occur by approaching
human convincing them that there is a need to change their values, attitudes, understanding and skill.

Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 3
3- Power Strategies:
Changes should meet the power expectations of the superiors who are in a higher power such core
strategies are used often in school.
According to John Mchnil there are following types of curriculum change:
Substitution:
In the type of change one elements is substituted by the other i.e. one course paper/one unit is replaced
with other. Mostly this kind of change is easily implemented.
1. Alternation:
If some material, content item or procedure is introduced into the existing material and is adopted. It is
considered alternation.
2. Perturbation:
Some changes when introduced disturb the program for some time and then later they get adjusted or
adopted into the program.
3. Restructuring:
These changes lead to modification of the system itself. For instance, team teaching, project method or
competency-based teaching and evaluation. This change is like restructuring.
4. Value-Oriented Change:
This change basically brings a shift from one’s philosophy or basic ideology towards a prescription or
orientation. Most of them resist should adjust with the changes and accept the same. The teacher who
cannot adjust their values to such changes may not be retained for long.

Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 4
Process of Curriculum change
Ideally, according to Lachiver & Tardif (2002), curriculum change is managed in a logical five-step process:
Stage of curriculum change Process
Step 1. An analysis of the current offerings and context;
Step 2. the expression of key program aims in a mission statement;
Step 3. prioritization of resources and development strategies;
Step 4. the implementation of the targeted curricula change;
Step 5. the establishment of monitoring tools and processes.
congruence of the
separate system of
values held by the
person or persons
seeking to create change
and by the person or
persons who are the
targets or human
subjects of the purposed
change
3. congruence
In which of
sentiment on
behalf of change is
being
communicated.
2. legitimating
In which ideas
for change are
launched and
decisions are
made regarding
the nature,
direction and
extent of change.
1. Initiation

Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 5
Various issues in Curriculum change
1) POLITICAL ISSUES
All aspects of curriculum depend on local, state and national political standards. Both private and public
educational institutions rely on political body for funding and decision making for hiring personnel,
building and maintaining facilities and equipment.
2) THE SOCIETAL ISSUES
Society has its own expectations about the aims and objectives that should be considered when changing
curriculum. It also has a perception of what the product of the school system should look like. It is
therefore necessary for curriculum designers to take in to account societal considerations.
3) ECONOMICAL ISSUES
Economic status of the people and the state play an important role in the curriculum change. The
aspirations of people, their demands and expectations from courses or curricular inclusion at various
stages of education, all depend on the economic status. Without financial help(budget) and resources,
curriculum wings can’t perform and implement new researches in education
4) TECHNOLOGY
The advancement in technology make the world a global village, the technology of the 21st century
require technical skills (problem solving, critical thinking, cooperation, creative skills). To cope with
current and future technology (artificial intelligence and robots) curriculum need to be change at every
level of learning  Technology make learning, easy, interesting, and interactive
5) SOCIAL DIVERSITY
Social diversity including religion, culture and social groupings affects curriculum development because
these characteristics influence the types of topics and methods for teaching information. Developing
relevant curriculum considers society's expectations accommodating group traditions and promoting
equality.
6) ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
World awareness and action toward reversing and ending pollution continues affecting curriculum
development. Typical elementary classrooms teach recycling and healthy environmental practices.
7) OTHER ISSUES
• Institutional issues in implementation
o Infrastructure

Curriculum Design and Development by Hina Jalal (PhD Scholar GCUF) pg. 6
o Faculty development
o Faculty apprehensions
• Programmatic issues in implementation
o Organization and coordination
o Financial support
o Political commitment
o Effect on health system of the country
o Need and usefulness of COME curriculum
o Faculty readiness and knowledge of the program
• Curricular issues in implementation
o Community based learning
o Problem-based learning
o Participation of students in curriculum planning and development
o Student assessment
o Resource