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Recent Edition
Editorial Article
Volume 4 Issue 1 - 2019
Is curriculum needed?
Sobia Haqqi
1Associate Professor, Consultant Psychiatrist, Medical Educationist-in-training
*Corresponding Author: Sobia Haqqi, MBBS., FCPS.,MCPS. Associate Professor, Consultant Psychiatrist, Medical Educationist-in-training, Karachi, Pakistan..
Received: September 24, 2019; Published: September 30, 2019
The importance of curriculum in any given educational system is pivotal. It paves the way in the planning of an educational process or procedure for a specific session.
Curricular development must take into account factors such performance level that is expected of the future trainees, safety in clinical practice, abiding by and maintaining specific standards of care, patient related factors such as expectations from care givers, patient quality and diversity factors, and clear knowledge about operational and professional perspectives [1].
One striking feature of a standardized curriculum, as suggested by various schools of thought, is that it transforms the educational ideas into realistic and doable clinical practice [2].
Most post-graduate training institutes rely on a curriculum to achieve their educational goals, a curriculum that is functional as well as relevant to the needs of that particular institute and caters to the community needs as well.
Advantages of implementing a curriculum in any training program are that there is an improvement in the overall teaching process. The teachers are provided with tangible goals as well as resources to follow. Self-reflection in the learners is manifested as a result of following standardized guidelines. Similarly, reflection on the strengths of the curriculum is manifested by comparing the professional growth of the trainees by adapting various assessments and evaluations within the training process.
Not having a curriculum in an educational system can weaken the training as a whole because of inconsistencies in training of various trainees and inconsistency in expectations of teachers towards student performance.
Likewise, lack of standardized assessments could influence the training system negatively. Standardized assessments come into place once a structured, standardized curricula has been followed in the particular training system.
Globalization, economic disparities, lack of skilled health care professionals are few of the red flags that challenge the Health Systems everywhere [3].
Shifting paradigms with rapid influx of knowledge and advancement could also influence post-graduate training institutes towards adaptation of competency based curriculum in their training programs [4].
Although there is no denying the fact that a standard curriculum is pertinent for any successful training program, there will always be some variations in the structure of a standardized curriculum that could be based on various factors such as region specific preferences, teaching philosophies etc [5].
References
  1. General Medical Council (2017) Adapting for the future: a plan for improving the flexibility of UK postgraduate medical training available at www.gmc-uk.org/education/30540.asp.
  2. Bligh J., et al. “PRISMS: new educational strategies for medical education”. Medical Education 35.6 (2001): 520-521.
  3. WHO regional office for Africa. The regional professional regulatory framework for nursing and midwifery. Creating a common approach to regulation, educational preparation and practice: Future direction for nursing and midwifery development in the African Region. Brazzaville: WHO, 2014b.
  4. Fairbanks C and White JB. “Oculomotor nerve palsy in the setting of an anterior cerebral A2 segment aneurysm”. J Neurointerv Surg 3.1 (2011): 74-76.
  5. Botma Y. Implications of accreditation criteria when transforming a traditional nursing curriculum to a competency‐based curriculum. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences 1(2014): 23-28.
  6. Perry S., et al. “Simulation and curriculum design: a global survey in dental education. Australian Dental Journal 62.4 (2014): 453-463.
Citation: Sobia Haqqi. "Is curriculum needed?". Current Opinions in Neurological Science 4.1 (2019): 47-48.
Copyright: © 2019 Sobia Haqqi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.