Curriculum Reform and Revision Program

THE Ministry of Education, the National Education Commission (NEC) and the National Institute of Education (NIE) has initiated an extensive program for revision of curriculum to be implemented from 2007.

This will take place at the end of an B-year cycle since the last curriculum revision implemented in 1999, states an Education Ministry press release.

In the new program the primary curriculum (Grade 1-5) will have special features such as introducing Sinhala for Tamil students and Tamil for Sinhala students.

Learning English as a subject will be started from Grade 1, and Activity Based Oral English will be extended to include learning Mathematics.

School Based Assessment will be strengthened and learning the concepts of Computer Science and ICT will be included in the new primary curriculum.

In Grades 6-9 there will be special emphasis on Life Competencies, which includes Ethics and Civic Consciousness.

Science and Maths will be given strong focus and Student Projects will be a compulsory part of curriculum. History and Geography will be taught as separate subjects using project work and assignments and these will be tested through School Based Assessment.

In the Ordinary Level (Grades 10 - 11) Physics, Chemistry and Biology will be introduced after 33 years. The option of learning these subjects in the English medium will be introduced.

A wide range of subjects for Aesthetics and Technical education also will be introduced. Information Technology as a separate subject will be introduced to the curriculum from 2006.

In the case of GCE Advanced Level, teaching General English will be compulsory and the Common General Test will be revised with more focus on testing problem solving skills and simple mathematical skills.

New technology subjects will be introduced and General Information Technology will be tested by a formal examination starting August 2005.

The new syllabus will be designed on the lines of relevant syllabuses of other countries such as India, Malaysia, Singapore and UK. In this competency-based new approach, emphasis will be given to project work and assignment.

Special emphasis will be given to not overloading the content and subject matters and the child's education will be focused on learning through activity.

The process for the new books that will be published in keeping with this curriculum change will begin from September this year and there would be a significant qualitative improvement in the books comparable to those of international repute. Teacher training will take place during the 3 school vacations in 2006.