Curriculum is a key component in the learning process. Having quality and relevant curriculum can significantly contribute to the educational development of a society.
Taking into account the problems of the previous literacy curriculum and the frequent demand of people, the Deputy Ministry of Education for Literacy (DMoEL) decided to develop a new curriculum for literacy education in Afghanistan with technical and financial support from UNESCO. The new curriculum has been developed in two major parts, 1) Basic General Literacy (BGL) and 2) Skill Based Literacy (SBL). The work on the new curriculum was started in early 2015 with the development of a Curriculum Framework endorsed and singed by the Education Minister on April 3, 2016. Based on this curriculum framework, all organizations and NGOs working in the field of literacy can develop their own curricula and can have their own instructional material. Following the endorsement of the new curriculum framework, the development of instructional material for both BGL and SBL was started. Each part is introduced in more details as follow:
Basic General Literacy (BGL)
Generally, 5 books have been developed for BGL which aims to improve reading, writing and numeracy skills of learners. Developing this part was started in April 2016 by 4 Technical Working Groups (TWGs) consisted of employees from the Curriculum and Teacher Training Directorates of DMoEL, UNESCO-Afghanistan and literacy facilitators. These TWGs were working under the direct supervision of national and international experts. After one year extensive work, these instructional material were finalized and signed by the Education Minister of Afghanistan on February 12, 2017.
- Reading Holy Quran & Dari): Its lessons have been developed in four parts where the first part introduces letters shapes in the beginning, middle and end of words with their sounds and harakats. The Second part introduces Sokun and its usages. Third part is the introduction of Hamza. The fourth part is fluently reading Suras of Holy Quran.
- Pashto/Dari Workbook: This workbook has 8 chapters, 40 lessons and 190 pages. Different types of activities were developed in each lesson of the book to enable learners in achieving required competencies in reading and writing. Phonemic awareness approach has been used in order to introduce Dari/Pashto phonemes in these workbooks.
- Numeracy Workbook (Pashto and Dari): This workbook has 22 lessons and 91 pages, which covers reading and writing numbers from 1 digit up to 5 digits, four operations, using calculator machine, introduction to fraction, geometric shapes and measurements units.
- Learner’s Assessment Portfolio (LAP) for Language and Numeracy Workbooks (Dari and Pashto): LAP has been designed to assess literacy leaners in different stages of their learning. In total, it has 20 assessments; 12 assessments have been allocated for Dari/Pashto Workbook and 8 others have been allocated for Numeracy Workbook.
- Teacher Guide (Pashto & Dari): This guide briefly introduces literacy new workbooks, their activities, teaching plans and Learners’ Assessment Portfolio (LAP).
Skill Based Literacy (SBL)
Skill Based Literacy workbooks have been developed based on a needs assessment survey conducted by the Deputy Ministry of Education for Literacy (DMoEL) with technical and financial support of UNESCO. The purpose of Skill Based Literacy is to integrate literacy with developing vocational skills, which will result in active contribution of learners in economic development of the country. In Skill Based Literacy (SBL), in addition to literacy (reading and writing), learners also learn a specific vocational skill in order to bring a positive change in their lives and play an active role in the economic development of the society.
In Skill Based Literacy program for 8 different vocational skills, the workbooks will be developed. Out of those, for below 4 skills, the workbooks have been developed and they are under printing process:
- Tailoring
- Beekeeping
- Poultry
- Dairy
The workbooks for below 4 other vocational skills have been developed and will be printed in the future:
- Basic Health and First Aids
- Fish Farming
- Vegetable Farming
- Starting your Own Business
Features of the New Literacy Curriculum
In the new Literacy Curriculum, efforts have been made to overcome the problems of the previous curriculum and to some extend be aligned with other curriculums in the world. The major features of the new literacy curriculum are mentioned as follow:
- Competency based: This curriculum mainly focuses on competencies rather than the content. This is because in the previous and other curriculums contents were considered key in the learning process.
- Activity oriented: Comparing to the previous literacy curriculum and other current curriculums, the new literacy curriculum has more activities that improves learners’ reading and writing skills.
- Learner centered: In the new literacy curriculum, learner is more active than teacher and the teacher plays the role of a facilitator.
The new literacy workbooks are used in ELA literacy classes for the current cycle and will be evaluated and partially revised at the end of this cycle. All literacy facilitators and stakeholders are requested to help the DMoEL in the improvement of these instructional materials by sharing their valuable thoughts, ideas and comments. All agencies and NGOs working in the field of literacy can use these new literacy workbooks in their literacy courses and in order to get the soft copies of these workbooks, they can contact the Deputy Ministry of Education for Literacy (DMoEL).
View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.
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