2. IDENTIFICATION OF CLIENT GROUP AND CONTEXT

Employees/Professional Institutions

Teacher Education curriculum is designed to the needs of professional institutions and the employers. It is therefore necessary to identify specific groups of users for the curriculum being developed and arrange for consultation with them. It is important that these groups be consulted so that these groups have ownership of the curricula, see it as meeting their needs.

The initial approach for curriculum development/revision is initiated by professional institutions.

In the context of developing countries, institutions face the challenge of obtaining government support at the policy level, along with industry and professional institutions cooperation for developing relevant curricula.

Consultation with Industry and Professional Institutions

Effective consultation is an essential pre-requisite for the success of curriculum development. The various interest groups need to be fully aware of the rationale and objectives of curriculum development and provide necessary inputs during its development. Representatives of industry and institutions need to be members of the working group so that they can participate in the process of curriculum development.

Learner

Curriculum developers need to identify the target learner group of the proposed curriculum so that the needs of learners can be taken into account early in the development process. Some needs of the learners to be considered are:-

¨ the entry requirement
¨ access to education
¨ successful role models
¨ status of graduates
¨ cost-effectiveness of the programme

The curriculum developers must address themselves to the learner in order to produce a viable curriculum.