Efficiency And Equity In Basic Education Curriculum Reform

As a social activity, basic education curriculum reform, just like other human social activities, faces the problems of efficiency and equity at the same time. As one of the developmental resources, basic education curriculum possesses efficiency features, since it can effectively promote the development of individuals, society and a nation. As a kind of state public goods, basic education curriculum possesses equity features, since it reflects the relationship of curriculum interest between social individuals or groups. Thus, there are two orientations in basic education curriculum reform. One is efficiency orientation, which pursues to enhance the efficiency of human resource cultivation in order to enhance the development efficiency of a society and a state through curriculum reforms. The other is equity orientation, which pursues to eliminate the factors which cause inequity development between persons and furthermore, cause social inequity, and to enforce the equity quality of basic education curriculum as social a kind of public goods, through curriculum reforms.Historically, basic education curriculum reform moved back and forth between efficiency orientation and equity orientation, which showed itself in the basic education curriculum reform both of American’s and of Chinese’s ones since20th century. In China, efficiency oriented basic education curriculum system was established at the very beginning of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. But it was replaced in1958by equity orientation curriculum reform which fell into an irrational and ultra equity oriented basic education curriculum reform. In1977, efficiency oriented basic education curriculum system was established again. Since2001, China sponsored a new equity oriented basic education curriculum reform in which basic education curriculum was reconstructed based on a new rationale. From the beginning of20th century to1950s, America experienced equity oriented basic education curriculum reform throughout half a century, until efficiency oriented curriculum reform gained a major position in the end of1950s under the pressure of international political and technological competition. Subsequently, efficiency orientation was revolted from1960s to mid1970s. Since the end of1970s, efficiency orientation took its place again in basic education curriculum reform. But this time, the reform added equity factors in efficiency orientation, made efficiency and equity to be harmonious in curriculum reform.In studying the basic education curriculum reform history, we find out that, the efficiency pursuit of basic education curriculum reform mainly focuses on efficiency pursuit of the state’s development, and economic efficiency plays as the major role. The efficiency pursuit of basic education curriculum reform generates from the state requirement for certain quality human resource which shows more and more contribution on state development, as a result of the intense international competition from20th century, the high pressure on state development, the speedy developing science and technology. Basic education curriculum reform fulfills its efficiency pursuit through measures such as the centralization of curriculum management power, academic curriculum content, disciplined curriculum organization, intellectualized curriculum implementation and selective curriculum evaluation. All of these measures make efficiency oriented basic education curriculum reform form a "hard curriculum" whose characters include those of deeply divided, strongly framed, highly uniformed and highly stabilized."Hard curriculum" is a way to fulfill the efficiency pursuit of basic education curriculum reform.On the other hand, the equity pursuit of basic education curriculum reform requires that curriculum respects every student’s educational right and developmental right, respects students’culture background, promotes students’development and enhances their culture quality, in order to provide students equal opportunities to gain an equal status politically, economically and culturally. In other word, there is no high-or-low stratification generated among students, and no one’s fundamental right which defines a person as a "human" is hampered by curriculum itself. Equity pursuit of basic education curriculum reform emerges when social equity becomes the protruding conflict, and when education plays as an important way to promote social equity, but basic education curriculum fails to exert its function for social equity. The equity pursuit of basic education curriculum reform reaches its goal through measures like decentralized curriculum management, living-faced curriculum content, experienced curriculum organization, situationalized curriculum implementation and development evaluation. All of these measures make equity oriented basic education curriculum reform form a "soft curriculum" whose characters are surface divided, week framed, multi-directed and low stabilized."Soft curriculum" is a way which equity oriented basic education curriculum reform reaches its goals.It is not hard to find out that the two curriculum reform orientations stand at opposition in reform measures. In fact, in history, the conflict of efficiency and equity does exist in basic education curriculum reform, efficiency oriented curriculum reform tends to cause inequity while equity oriented curriculum reform may cause inefficiency. But on the other side, there are some kind of cooperation between efficiency and equity in basic education curriculum reform since some curriculum reforms practice the dialectic logic either using equity to enhance efficiency or to promote equity through enhancing efficiency. It is the conflicts of the state versus individuals, elitism versus democracy, orbis scientiarum versus living world, and instrument rationality versus value rationality concentrated in the field of basic education curriculum reform. And it is these conflicts that shape the conflict between efficiency and equity in basic education curriculum reform. Therefore, we should handle these relations properly and found a reasonable ethical basis based on them in order to eliminate the conflict between efficiency and equity, and to make efficiency and equity cooperate together. In specific, we should establish a basic education curriculum system which can promote state’s development based on individual’s development, hold opening elitism based on democracy, make orbis scientiarum and living world coexist and communicate with each other, and embrace instrument rationality within the scope of value rationality."Shuttlecock model" curriculum system may meet such requirement."Shuttlecock model" curriculum system divides reasonably basic education curriculum into two sections:hard curriculum and soft curriculum. Hard curriculum, whose character is "few and solid", will give prominence to its quality of equity since it enforces the fundamental value of curriculum for the masses while it insists the function to give students necessary subject knowledge and discipline abilities; and soft curriculum, whose character is "much and loose", may also have efficiency features due to that it emphasizes the relation and communication between orbis scientiarum and living world while it maintains the function to promote student’s development individually and diversely. To sum up,"Shuttlecock model" curriculum system is a curriculum that reaches the goal of "equity with efficiency".