Curriculum Matters 2 : 2006

The Cold War, and especially the launch of Sputnik, meant changes in curriculum development throughout the Western world. New Zealand was no exception. Our model, the Curriculum Development Unit (CDU), later the Curriculum Development Division (CDD), was relatively unique, heavily oriented towards teacher involvement. In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was a confident sense of educational progress, and curriculum development was both a driver of that feeling and a reflection of it. Towards… Read more

Much is invested in, and expected of, a New Zealand curriculum. Following curriculum developments in the 1990s, a curriculum stocktake was carried out from 2000 to 2002, to investigate issues such as the manageability of the current curriculum, and the capability of teachers to meet the demands of the curriculum. At the same time, research findings were emerging from reports commissioned by the Ministry of Education, summarised in the Best Evidence Syntheses (BES), identifying that the most… Read more