Academic literature on the topic 'Curriculum planning – Malawi'

This article explores the development of a sustainable training programme supporting the inclusion of children with disabilities in early childhood, education and care (ECEC) centres in Malawi. This programme is based on a review of literature of curriculum, pedagogy and teaching approaches in ECEC in sub-Saharan Africa, alongside a review of national policy documents. The training was designed to enable staff to value the inclusion of children with disabilities in ECEC centres, as well as suggesting practical ways to do so. We set out our response to the gap in training of ECEC staff through the development of a supplementary integrated training programme, which, whilst respectful of the curriculum, policy and practice of Malawi, challenged staff to consider ways of including children with disabilities (CWD) and their families. We suggest this is a pragmatic and sustainable model that could be applied to training in other ECEC settings across the region in sub-Saharan Africa. It concludes with guiding principles for training those working in ECEC with young children with disabilities in low-income countries.

Children with special education needs possess unique learning characteristics which may inhibit their effective learning in mainstream, general education classes. Special education practices are therefore designed to address the educational needs of students with disabilities through various strategies including thorough assessments of students’ characteristics, individualized curriculum planning, and provision of essential services and resources to maximize learning. Although there is extensive research on special education in developed countries like the United States of America (USA), literature on its development and practice in Sub Saharan African countries is somewhat scattered and inconclusive. This study reviewed special education policy, special education teacher professional development, and challenges to successful special education practice in five Southern African countries: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, and Namibia. An understanding of special education policy development and challenges is imperative to develop a more successful practice.

Modern medicine is increasingly characterised by a personalised approach to treatment through producing therapies that target specific biological processes. When planning the new Bachelor of Biomedicine (BBiomed) degree, one of two completely new undergraduate courses crafted as part of the ‘Melbourne Curriculum’ introduced by The University of Melbourne in 2008, the paradigm that medical interventions should be evidence-based and driven by a molecular understanding of the cause of disease was a key design parameter. Our intention in developing the curriculum for Biomedicine: Molecule to Malady (M2M), a third-year compulsory capstone subject of this new BBiomed degree, was to enhance the ability of students to apply their core cross-disciplinary knowledge to unfamiliar problems in translational medicine by having expert clinicians/researchers explain the scientific reasoning applied to the development of disease interventions in their specialist areas.

Studies on the adaptation from face-to-face to online teaching during lockdown show the before and after in education that faces the double challenge of promoting digital skills and public access to connectivity and electronic devices in the post-COVID-19 era. Therefore, this article contributes to these new emerging lines of educational research by presenting an educational innovation project called “Teachers Versus COVID-19”. This project aimed to verify whether the figure of teacher-prosumer, that is, consumers of media culture and creators of their own educational resources, favors the initial training of teachers during the pandemic. To this end, the following objectives were proposed: firstly, test whether the figure of the teacher-prosumer contributes to improving the adaptation of face-to-face teaching to the virtual modality of the Didactics of Social Sciences in the Degree in Primary Education during lockdown; secondly, analyze the production of content on social networks by the students in the Degree in Primary Education, according to the objectives of sustainable development. To validate our teacher-prosumer proposal, we chose the design-based research (DBR) qualitative methodology. For this, 240 students from the course in Didactics of Social Sciences of the Degree in Primary Education at the University of Malaga created 37 educational videos that teach the social sciences curriculum to children between 6 and 12 years of age from the perspective of relevant social problems and the Sustainable Development Goals. These videos were disseminated through the project’s YouTube channel. The results of this study corroborate the effectiveness of turning students into teachers-prosumers, generating the development of critical, creative, digital, and socio-emotional skills so that they feel committed to playing an active role in social changes for a sustainable world.

06–782Baumgardner, Robert J. (Texas A&M U, USA; Robert_Baumgardner@tamu-commerce.edu), The appeal of English in Mexican commerce. World Englishes (Blackwell) 25.2 (2006), 251–266.06–783Bunta, Ferenc (Temple U, USA), Ingrid Davidovich & David Ingram, The relationship between the phonological complexity of a bilingual child's words and those of the target languages. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press), 10.1 (2006), 71–88.06–784Christiansen, Pia Vanting (Roskilde U, Denmark), Language policy in the European Union: European/English/Elite/Equal/Esperanto Union?Language Problems & Language Planning (John Benjamins) 30.1 (2006), 21–44.06–785Cook, Vivian, Benedetta Bassetti, Chise Kasai, Miho Sasaki & Jun Arata Takahashi, Do bilinguals have different concepts? The case of shape and material in Japanese L2 users of English. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.2 (2006), 137–152.06–786Costa, Albert (U Barcelona, Spain; acosta@ub.edu), Wido La Heij & Eduardo Navarrette, The dynamics of bilingual lexical access. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 137–151.06–787Dagenais, Diane, Elaine Day & Kelleen Toohey (Simon Fraser U, Canada), A multilingual child's literacy practices and contrasting identities in the figured worlds of French immersion classrooms. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.2 (2006), 205–218.06–788Dailey-O'Cain, Jennifer & Grit Liebscher, Language learners' use of discourse markers as evidence for a mixed code. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press), 10.1 (2006), 89–109.06–789De Groot, Annette M. B. (U Amsterdam, The Netherlands; a.m.b.degroot@uva.nl) & Ingrid K. Christoffels, Language control in bilinguals: Monolingual tasks and simultaneous interpreting. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 189–201.06–790Finkbeiner, Matthew (Harvard U, USA; msf@wjh.harvard.edu), Tamar H. Gollan & Alfonso Caramazza, Lexical access in bilingual speakers: What's the (hard) problem?Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 153–166.06–791Francis, Norbert (Northern Arizona U, USA), Democratic language policy for multilingual educational systems: An interdisciplinary approach. Language Problems & Language Planning (John Benjamins) 29.3 (2005), 211–230.06–792Glaser, Evelyne (Johannes Kepler U, Austria), Plurilingualism in Europe: More than a means for communication. Language and International Communication (Multilingual Matters) 5.3&4 (2005), 195–208.06–793Hélot, Christine (U Marc Bloch, France) & Andrea young, Notion of diversity in language education: Policy and practice at primary level in France. Language, Culture and Curriculum (Multilingual Matters) 18.3 (2005), 242–257.06–794Hernandez, Arturo E. (U Houston, USA; aehernandez@uh.edu) & Gayane Meschyan, Executive function is necessary to enhance lexical processing in a less proficient L2: Evidence from fMRI during picture naming. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 177–188.06–795Herrero, Elba Alicia (New Jersey City U, USA), Using Dominican oral literature and discourse to support literacy learning among low-achieving students from the Dominican Republic. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.2 (2006), 219–238.06–796Kroll, Judith F. (Pennsylvania State U, USA; jfk7@psu.edu), Susan C. Bobb & Zofia Wodniecka, Language selectivity is the exception, not the rule: Arguments against a fixed locus of language selection in bilingual speech. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 119–135.06–797Leung, Constant (King's College London, UK; constant.leung@kcl.ac.uk), Language and content in bilingual education. Linguistics and Education (Elsevier) 16.2 (2005), 238–252.06–798Low, Winnie W. M. (Pentecostal Lam Hon Kwong School of Hong Kong, China) & Dan Lu, Persistent use of mixed code: An exploration of its functions in Hong Kong schools. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.2 (2006), 181–204.06–799Lung, Rachel (Lingnan U, Hong Kong, China; wclung@ln.edu.hk), Translation training needs for adult learners. Babel (John Benjamins) 51.3 (2005), 224–237.06–800Maloof, Valerie Miller (Gwinnett County Public Schools, USA), Donald L. Rubin & Ann Neville Miller, Cultural competence and identity in cross-cultural adaptation: The role of a Vietnamese heritage language school. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.2 (2006), 255–273.06–801Matiki, Alfred J. (U Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana), Literacy, ethnolinguistic diversity and transitional bilingual education in Malawi. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Multilingual Matters) 9.2 (2006), 239–254.06–802Mills, Jean, Talking about silence: Gender and the construction of multilingual identities. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.1 (2006), 1–16.06–803Montrul, Silvina, On the bilingual competence of Spanish heritage speakers: Syntax, lexical-semantics and processing. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.1 (2006), 37–69.06–804Mooko, Theophilus (U Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana), Counteracting the threat of language death: The case of minority languages in Botswana. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Multilingual Matters) 27.2 (2006), 109–125.06–805Müller-Saini, Gotelind (U Heidelberg, Germany) & Gregor Benton, Esperanto and Chinese anarchism 1907–1920: The translation from diaspora to homeland. Language Problems & Language Planning (John Benjamins) 30.1 (2006), 45–73.06–806Myers-Scotton, Carol (U South Carolina, USA; carolms@gwm.sc.edu), Natural codeswitching knocks on the laboratory door. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 203–212.06–807Napier, Jemina (Macquarie U, Australia; jemina.napier@ling.mq.edu.au), Training sign language interpreters in Australia: An innovative approach. Babel (John Benjamins) 51.3 (2005), 207–223.06–808Park, Hyeon-Sook, Structural characteristics of proper nouns in Korean–Swedish discourse. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.1 (2006), 17–36.06–809Queen, Robin M., Phrase-final intonation in narratives told by Turkish–German bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.2 (2006), 153–178.06–810Roelofs, Ardi (Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, Nijmegen, the Netherlands; ardi@mpi.nl) & Kim Verhoef, Modeling the control of phonological encoding in bilingual speakers. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition (Cambridge University Press) 9.2 (2006), 167–176.06–811Rosenhouse, Judith, Lubna Haik & Liat Kishon-Rabin, Speech perception in adverse listening conditions in Arabic–Hebrew bilinguals. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.2 (2006), 119–135.06–812Salomon, Frank (U Wisconsin–Madison, USA) & Emilio Chambi Apaza, Vernacular literacy on the Lake Titicaca High Plains, Peru. Reading Research Quarterly (International Reading Association) 41.3 (2006), 304-326.06–813Sandel, Todd L. (U Oklahoma, Norman, USA), Wen-Yu Chao & Chung-Hui Liang, Language shift and language accommodation across family generations in Taiwan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (Multilingual Matters) 27.2 (2006), 126–147.06–814Scott Shenk, Petra, The interactional and syntactic importance of prosody in Spanish–English bilingual discourse. International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.2 (2006), 179–205.06–815Smith, Daniel J., Thresholds leading to shift: Spanish/English codeswitching and convergence in Georgia, U.S.A., International Journal of Bilingualism (Kingston Press) 10.2 (2006), 207–240.

Effective curriculum planning and decision making process is key to the success of educational programs. The problem with centralized educational systems is that, at the curriculum planning level, the system does not have sufficient data about the needs of the learner, teachers, and the expectations of the society at large for effective curriculum planning to take place. At the implementation level, the system does not give teachers the needed flexibility to implement the curriculum. The major purpose of this study was to investigate curriculum decision making process in Malawi. The research procedures used in this study consisted of systematic document analysis and interviews with selected educators. In addition, a survey of opinions of students, parents, teachers, and heads of schools was conducted. The findings of the study confirmed that the curriculum planning and decision making process in Malawi is centralized. It also found that curriculum planning and development process for the secondary school curriculum was not fully systematised. At the school level, heads of schools and teachers had very little say about the curriculum. The implementation of the curriculum was, therefore, not flexible enough to allow the curriculum to be modified to suit local conditions while at the same time meeting the nationally developed objectives. The following were some of the recommendations the study made: (1) Decisions about the curriculum should be broadly based. (2) The responsibility for national curriculum development should be vested in the hands of the Malawi Institute of Education. (3) The Ministry of Education and Culture should gradually institute a school-based management strategy in order to improve the effectiveness of schools. (4) Lines of communication between the school and the Ministry headquarters should be improved. (5) In order to encourage the application of knowledge and skills into practice, there is need to continue refining performance based assessment techniques for appraising student performance and for placement. It is hoped that the decentralization process now taking place within the education sector, will take into consideration the above recommendations in order to improve the quality of secondary education in Malawi.

Gender equality and information and communication technology are important in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in policy, planning, and practice. The 2000 Millennium Declaration of the United Nations (UN) formed an international agreement among member states to work toward the reduction of poverty and its effects by 2015 through eight Millennium Development Goals: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. Achieve universal primary education 3. Promote gender equality and the empowerment of women 4. Reduce child and maternal mortality 5. Improve maternal health care 6. Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria, and other major diseases 7. Ensure environmental sustainability 8. Develop global partnership for development Progress toward gender equality and the empowerment of women is one goal that is important to achieving the others. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy, environmental threats, HIV and AIDS, and other health threats disproportionately affect the lives of women and their dependent children. Gender-sensitive ICT applications to education, health care, and local economies have helped communities progress toward the MDGs. ICT applications facilitate rural health-care workers’ access to medical expertise through phones and the Internet. Teachers expand learning resources through the Internet and satellite services, providing a greater knowledge base for learners. Small entrepreneurs with ICT access and training move their local business into world markets. ICT diffusion into world communication systems has been pervasive. Even some of the poorest economies in Africa show the fastest cell-phone growth, though Internet access and landline numbers are still low (International Telecommunications Union [ITU], 2003b). ICT access or a lack of it impacts participation, voice, and decision making in local, regional, and international communities. ICTs impact the systems that move or inhibit MDG progress. UN secretary general Kofi Annan explained the role of the MDGs in global affairs: Millennium Development Goals are too important to fail. For the international political system, they are the fulcrum on which development policy is based. For the billion-plus people living in extreme poverty, they represent the means to a productive life. For everyone on Earth, they are a linchpin to the quest for a more secure and peaceful world. (UN, 2005, p. 28) Annan also stressed the critical need for partnerships to facilitate technology training to enable information exchange and analysis (UN, 2005). ICT facilitates sharing lessons of success and failure, and progress evaluation of work in all the MDG target areas. Targets and indicators measuring progress were selected for all the MDGs. Gender equality and women’s empowerment are critical to the achievement of each other goal. Inadequate access to the basic human needs of clean water, food, education, health services, and environmental sustainability and the support of global partnership impacts great numbers of women. Therefore, the targets and indicators for Goal 3 address females in education, employment, and political participation. Progress toward the Goal 3 target to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015, will be measured by the following indicators. • Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education • Ratio of literate females to males who are 15- to 24-year-olds • Share of women in wage employment in the nonagricultural sector • Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (World Bank, 2003) Education is positively related to improved maternal and infant health, economic empowerment, and political participation (United Nations Development Program [UNDP], 2004; World Bank, 2003). Education systems in developing countries are beginning to offer or seek ways to provide ICT training as a basic skill and knowledge base. Proactive policy for gender equality in ICT access has not always accompanied the unprecedented ICT growth trend. Many civil-society representatives to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) argue for ICT access to be considered a basic human right (Girard & Ó Soichrú, 2004; UN, 1948). ICT capability is considered a basic skill for education curriculum at tertiary, secondary, and even primary levels in developed regions. In developing regions, ICT access and capability are more limited but are still tightly woven into economic communication systems. ICTs minimize time and geography barriers. Two thirds of the world’s poor and illiterate are women (World Bank, 2003). Infant and maternal health are in chronic crisis for poor women. Where poverty is highest, HIV and AIDS are the largest and fastest growing health threat. Ninety-five percent of people living with HIV and AIDS are in developing countries, partly because of poor dissemination of information and medical treatment. Women are more vulnerable to infection than men. Culturally reinforced sexual practices have led to higher rates of HIV infection for women. Gender equality and the empowerment of women, starting with education, can help fight the spread of HIV, AIDS, and other major diseases. ICT can enhance health education through schools (World Bank). Some ICT developers, practitioners, and distributors have identified ways to incorporate gender inclusiveness into their policies and practice for problem-solving ICT applications toward each MDG target area. Yet ICT research, development, education, training, applications, and businesses remain male-dominated fields, with only the lesser skilled and salaried ICT labor force approaching gender equality. Successful integration of gender equality and ICT development policy has contributed to MDG progress through several projects in the developing regions. Notable examples are the South-African-based SchoolNet Africa and Bangladesh-based Grameen Bank Village Pay Phone. Both projects benefit from international public-private partnerships. These and similar models suggest the value and importance of linking gender equality and empowerment with global partnership for development, particularly in ICT. This article reports on developing efforts to coordinate the achievement of the MDGs with policy, plans, and practice for gender equality beyond the universal educational target, and with the expansion of ICT access and participation for women and men. The article examines the background and trends of MDG 3, to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, with particular consideration of MDG 8, to develop global partnership for development, in ICT access and participation.