On School-based Curriculum Management

The management system of "three-level curriculum" is an important part in a new round of basic education curriculum reform, and it's also an innovation of the curriculum management system in China's basic education. The study on school-based curriculum, which is one of part of "three-level curriculum", has is own research meaning as follows: it can make up for the centralization in curriculum management; it's management level determine the failure or success of school-based curriculum development; it has advantage to improve the teachers'professionalization. What's the meant by school-based curriculum management? By viewing "school-based", "school-based curriculum" and "curriculum management" these three concepts, we conclude that school-based curriculum management means to manage the school-based curriculum. The subject of school-based curriculum management is school headmaster and teacher, etc.; the object of school-based curriculum management is curriculum forms management, curriculum implements management and curriculum appraises management etc. Comparing with centralized curriculum management system of our country, America is a kind of decentralization, which has many worth experiences for us references,reflecting in those respects: it's based on student; it gives full play to the teacher's initiative; it collects the suggestions from the various circles of society extensively; it pursues the professional school-based management. But there are a lot of weak points in the curriculum management of American school, mainly in curriculum management. As the philosophical foundation of school-based management, the post-modern philosophy impacts on school-based management reflecting mainly on curriculum goal, curriculum development, curriculum implement, curriculum evaluation. Administrative system theory comb through the subject and object of school-based management, which suggests that school-based curriculum management should include policy-makers, brains thrust, operational staff, supervisors; while manage object include the curriculum forms management, curriculum implements management and curriculum appraises management. Studying on school-based management theory will do us good in understanding and carrying out the school-based curriculum management. The policymaker of school-based curriculum management is "school curriculum committee", which main duty is to verify the Outline of School-based Curriculum Development, to create the necessary condition for school-based curriculum development, and to supervise the implement of school-based curriculum. The committee members are composed of headmaster, the representative of teachers, students, parents and social personage, while the headmaster plays important part in this committee. The executors are teachers, who are the main part of school-based curriculum development and school-based curriculum management also. Many educators such as Taylor, Schwab, Henderson and Hawthorne have their own special argumentation on this respect. The intellectual support mainly comes from the discipline expert and the curriculum expert of normal university. The supervisors are administrative personnel in education, students, parents and social personage, etc. Their main responsibility is to supervise the development of school-based curriculum, and to feedback the confronting problems to school curriculum committee so as to adjust the policy in time. The object of school-based curriculum management is divided according to the Taylor's Rational. The produce of school-based curriculum management contains the determination of a suitable goal and the type of school-based curriculum, and the choice of contents of school-based curriculum. The implements of school-based curriculum management contain the management of curriculum resources and the class teaching. The curriculum appraises management contains the management of the goal, the methods, and the results of curriculum appraises. Guangxi province belongs to the backward areas, the school-based curriculum is not so developed as it exists those problems as follows: Firstly, it is not enough to pay attention to school-based curriculum management. Secondly, it is too narrow fields in school-based curriculum management. Thirdly, leader and the teacher's role are limited to controlling and carrying out. Teachers'relatively bad curriculum quality is the main cause leading to insufficient management in school-based curriculum. As to this, we propose the three suggestions: Firstly, establish the curriculum committee of the school, which is responsible for managing the curriculum of the school. Secondly, reform the mode of training teacher, to improve teacher's curriculum quality. For example, establish expert panel that concretes on the guiding work of school-based implements management; carry out the mode of " train --on duty --the expert instructs --Retraining --on more duty --reaccept expert instructs"; offer the exchange and cooperative platform to teacher. Thirdly, reform the evaluation of school-based curriculum. We propose that the educational administrative department brings the school-based curriculum within the college entrance examination, define the position of the curriculum development, and improve a curriculum evaluation method of school curriculum, paying attention to its scientific process.