The Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) once embarked upon a process of curriculum revision in Nigeria. In carrying out this revision, eventually presented was workable. As an ongoing process of the review, constant evaluation becomes necessary in the process of the review.
The process of review first started with the dissatisfaction with existing science curriculum and a desire for change. STAN, a professional teacher’ organization, took up the challenge and set up panels for a review of the science curriculum. The panel came up with the production of the Nigerian Integrated science Project (NISP) which was first put into use in 1966. This was, and still is, an integrated approach to the study of science at the lower classes of secondary school. You will recall that in your earlier study of curriculum organization, the Broad field curriculum was discussed, among others, as an integrated approach to curriculum organization. STAN embarked upon this revision in order to make science education and activity related to life (or living) rather than a series of unrelated and irrelevant (to life) of bits of information. Thus, a new focus for science education was to relate it to daily life and pupils’ experiences. The materials eventually produced for school, integrated to major disciplines of science such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics, into Integrated Science which is still being taught today though further review are still being done.
There had to be a try-out stage before the curriculum could be used but STAN did not do this initially. The try-out stage is a process of formative evaluation, the result of which could have been used then, in preparing the new curriculum. The Integrated Science Curriculum, however, has come to stay at the primary and junior secondary school level, and it is being perfected from time to time as a result of fee received from evaluation outcomes.
Other bodies, such as Comparative Education Study and Adaptation Centre (CESAC), which was set up to the Federal Government in 1968 at the University of Lagos also engage in curriculum revision through
among other thins feed back obtained from evaluation. They had embarked upon production of new curriculum materials – teachers’
texts. Pupils’ tests, and emphasizing audio –visual materials in teaching.
They have, however, been merged with the Nigerian Educational Research Council (NERC) to become Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council.
3.4 Summary of uses of Curriculum Evaluation
In the last two sub-units; 3.2 and 3.3, you have seen clearly that evaluation plays important roles in curriculum revision. You must have remembered from this also that curriculum development process is dynamic and changes are made from time to time to the curriculum from the planning to implementation stages. So, central to these changes is the important roles of evaluation. This is the type of evaluation described as evaluation of the educational programme itself. It is the first type of curriculum evaluation. The second type which is the evaluation of students’ performance in the programme had been studied in unit 3 of this module. Do not forget that when students; performance in the educational programme is evaluated; the outcome is also useful in curriculum evaluation or evaluation f the educational programme itself.
However, there are still some other important uses of evaluation in education. This is written to complement what you have already studied in this regard in unit 3 of Module IV.
3.4.1 Other Uses of Curriculum Evaluation
1. Curriculum evaluation is an endless process. It constantly goes on by various agencies or bodies set up by Government to monitor educational programmes within the school system. For example, the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) constantly monitors the implementation of the curriculum in the schools in line with the National Policy on education publishes the outcome as a new edition of the 6-3-3-4 system.
2. Bodies such as the National Commission of College of Education (NCCE) have also been set up by the Federal Government to harmonize the curricula for all disciplines in the Colleges of Education in Nigeria. They also courses and supervise the award of the Nigerian Certificate in Education (NCE) in Nigerian Colleges of Education. The reason for accreditation of courses is to ensure that standards are maintained in the Colleges. The accreditation process is an evaluation of the curriculum materials, facilities, personnel and students to ensure standard. Thus, institutions to ensure quality production of teachers. Bodies which carry out similar activities at
the tertiary level are the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and National Universities’ Commission (NUC).
3. In Science Education, Daramola (1995) reported that scientific behaviours of learners are evaluated and the result is ploughed back into improving the science curriculum methodology in order to achieve the objectives for science education
4. Formative evaluation, as had already been studied is useful in determining the strength and weaknesses of the designed curriculum.
Again, the information received is useful in curriculum revision.
5. Summative evaluation, which had also been studied already, is also useful to take the decision whether to continue or discontinue with a curriculum or to specify the conditions under which it must be used if it was to continue.
4.0 CONCLUSION
As it has been said earlier, this unit concludes what you have studied thus far in this course titled: “curriculum development: theory and practice”. You must have known by the end of this study that curriculum evaluation is a very integral part of the curriculum development process to ensure that objectives are attained.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, you have studied the fact that:
(i) Curriculum evaluation is useful;
(ii) Curriculum revision must necessarily involve curriculum evaluation;
(iii) Bodies set up by Government such as NERDDC, NCCE, etc and Professional Teachers’ Bodies such as STAN, embark on curriculum in their respective areas of assignment
(iv) That both formative and summative evaluation are very important for decision making purposes in the curriculum development process.