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The imminent introduction of a new curriculum in 2013 will not provide any guarantees for resolving
the current problems in education in the nation. A new curriculum is always a good notion.
However, drawbacks invariably stem from implementation. Thus, what is urgent is not to change the
curriculum, but to implement it.
Curriculum implementation means simply putting into effect the curriculum as intended, including a
system to appraise its effectiveness. An appraisal process provides feedback for the development
process, where the data is utilized for curriculum improvement. The educational curriculum needs
continuous improvement, not continuous change.
Curriculum improvement is not necessarily sequential; oftentimes it occurs in parallel as well as in
tandem. It is usually begun in a certain area of the curriculum on a trial-and-error basis as an
alternative to present practices. Evaluative data is useful for seeing the curriculum in action and is
valuable for improving it.
The 2013 curriculum, as Education and Culture Minister Mohammad Nuh has said, is an
improvement over the 2004 and 2006 curriculums, which have been said to be competence-based
and school-based respectively. Meanwhile, teachers are still learning how to put into action the
2006 curriculum.
Regrettably, most teachers and the public in general are not informed about what essentially went
wrong with the 2006 curriculum. The government should have publicized the evaluative data to
identify which aspects of the curriculum were problematic. Such data would have made the
curriculum change more sensible.
Organizations such as teacher professional development networks (MGMP) should produce best
practices that enrich not only the immediate community, but the profession as a whole. MGMPbased programs seem to be more context-specific, teacher-generated, and immediate-needsdriven.
It is a disservice to the MGMP community when we fail to probe the effectiveness of MGMPestablished programs and overlook their results. Such a mechanism utilizes the continuous
professional development (CPD) of teachers.
Curriculum improvement, rather than curriculum change, is focused on certain problematic aspects.
Thus, curriculum improvement is more economic and problem-based. To repeat, what is essential
for teachers is CPD, namely a career-long process in which teachers fine-tune their teaching to
meet student needs. The major benefactor of CPD is the student. CPD directly tackles teachers
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