Chapter 3Establishing the context and

foundations

•No curriculum is developed in a vacuum. It is developed by a group of educators, for a group of students, in a specific school, set in a region of a specific country, with a health service and an education system

that has its own unique characteristics.

•Wragg (1997) gives three propositions that can be seen as the rationale for a situation analysis as the first step of the process of curriculum development.

•Firstly, education must incorporate a vision of the future, since education does not prepare students for today or

yesterday, but for tomorrow.

•Secondly, there are escalating demands on people, both in terms of their chosen career, and in the wider world of living as

a citizen in the 21st century.

•Thirdly, the learning of students must be inspired by several influences, without focusing narrowly on one aspect. The how of learning might be more important than what is learnt. For instance, future leaders might be shaped more by the attitudes, vision and inspiration they internalize during their education than by the content (facts) they were taught.

Studying the context

•With regard to nursing programmes, the following stakeholders are usually involved:

•Prospective students, and in the case of school-leavers, their parents.

•The health services who will employ the products of the programme.

•The health services in which clinical practica will be done during training.

•The education authorities, including the specific school or department in which the programme is offered, as well as the larger organization.

•The regulatory body for nursing, e.g. nursing councils or state boards.

•The community served by the educational institution and the health services

What are the environmental influences on the program?

•The environment refers to those influences from outside the system over which the system has little or no control. Nursing education forms part of at least four larger systems: the health system, the education system, the regulatory system

and the societal system.

•The following list of questions could guide curriculum developers in analysing the environmental factors impacting on the

programme they design.

•1- Health system

•Educational system

•Professional system

•Societal system

Which resources can the programme access?

•The following resources need to be analysed.

•Teaching staff

•Teaching resources

•Prospective students

•Clinical facilities

Points for discussion

•To what extent should a programme be shaped for local situation? Would this not lead to qualified nurses being unable to

function in other settings?•How can the differences of philosophical

beliefs of teachers in the same school be handled during the process of curriculum

development?