The dominant mode of describing and managing education today is described as the curriculum, and objectives are set, a plan drawn up, then applied, and the results measured (Curriculum, 2005). This guides the educators in how to plan and assess the validity of curricula. It is a way of thinking about education that grew in influence in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s, and the work of two Americans in the area, Franklin Bobbitt and Ralph W. Tyler, dominates the theory and practice within this tradition. According to Bobbitt, the central theory of curriculum is simple: human life consists of the performance of specific activities, and education that prepares one for life, prepares one for these specific activities definitely and adequately. However different these may be for any particular social class, they only need to go out into the world and discover what these affairs consist of. This will show the abilities, attitudes, habits, appreciations and forms of knowledge that men need, and these will be the objective of curriculum. The curriculum will thus be the series of experiences which children and youth must have to obtain those objectives.
BobbittÆs work and theory have met with mixed responses, one criticism being that it has no social vision or program to guide the process of curriculum construction (Curriculum, 2005). TylerÆs Rational-linear approach is based on four fundamental questions: 1) what educational purposes should the school seek to attain; 2) what educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain that purpose; 3) how can these educational experiences be effectively organized; and 4) how can we determine whether these purposes are being attained? This hs done by: diagnosis of need; formulation of objectives; selection of content; organization of content; selection of learning experiences; organization of learning experiences; and determination of what to evaluate and of the ways a...