Evaluation of the implementation of the national core curriculum for pre-primary and basic education

10/2016–12/2020

Goals and objectives of evaluation

The goal of evaluating the implementation of the national core curricula for pre-primary and basic education is to produce information on the functionality and effectiveness of the education steering systems and the factors promoting and preventing the fulfillment of the objectives in the curriculum. The objective of the evaluation is to benefit the development of the education steering system and school work already during the evaluation process.

The implementation of the national core curricula for pre-primary and basic education is evaluated at both the national and local levels by examining the following:

• the fulfillment of national objectives in education
• the functionality of the reformed distribution of lesson hours
• the fulfillment of content-related and pedagogic objectives in the core curricula
• the preparation, deployment and functionality of the curricula
• the functionality of the curricula as a tool for the strategic and pedagogic development in schools
• the impact of local solutions for the distribution of lesson hours on the fulfillment of the content-related objectives of the curriculum
• the conception of learning, transversal competence, integrative instruction, multidisciplinary learning modules, learning environments and work methods as part of developing teaching.

The evaluation will be conducted in four stages between 2016 and 2020

• The first stage (2016–2018) will consist of the evaluation of local solutions for the distribution of lesson hours and the functionality of said distribution as well as the preparation and deployment processes of curricula. The objective is to produce information on the fulfillment of content-related objectives of the pre-primary and basic education curricula and the functionality of the reformed distribution of lesson hours and the core curricula as a tool of the strategic and pedagogic development in schools.
• The second stage (2018–2019) will focus on the conception of learning and transversal competence. The evaluation will cover the fulfillment of the conception of learning in the everyday life of schools and pre-primary education units and investigate how transversal competence as a teaching objective has been understood and structured in pre-primary and basic education.
• The third stage (2019–2020) will include further examination of the implementation of the pre-primary and basic education core curricula and the contents thereof at a local level. Key themes to be evaluated include learning environments, work methods, integrative instruction and multidisciplinary learning modules as part of the operating culture in basic education.
• The fourth stage (2019–2020) will examine pre-primary and basic education as a whole in terms of teaching and upbringing and the implementation of an operating culture supporting the uniformity of pre-primary and basic education. In this synthesis stage, the monitoring materials are collected and the overall evaluation results from different stages of the project are reviewed, especially from the perspectives of the national goals of education and the fulfillment of the objectives of the core curricula for pre-primary and basic education.

Based on the results from the various evaluation stages, it will be possible to observe how the policies and objectives of the core curricula have been integrated with the curricula and annual plans and how they have guided the development of pre-primary and basic education.