Post date: Feb 18, 2014 11:06:01 AM
QUESTION 1
In my own words, the term “curriculum” may be defined as all the experiences the learner had under the guidance of a school.
This guidance role of the school means that the school has the responsibility of the courses that the learner may be exposed to. It also has the responsibility for planning all the activities the learner should participate in whether inside or outside the school. It has the responsibility for guiding in terms of the content they should learn whether from courses offered in the school from the related opportunities outside the school.
It also places responsibility on the school in terms of guiding each learner to benefit maximally from all the experiences they have in the course of passing through the school. From the above definition, it means that the curriculum can be seen as what people call educational programme of a school and such educational programme usually comprise three aspects namely:
i. The programme of studies
ii. The programme of activities
iii. The programme of guidance
i. The Programme of Studies
The programme of studies aspect of curriculum covers the range of subjects offered by the school. By extension the programme of studies also include the content of subject matter to be found in these subjects. All these mean that the programme of studies present to the learner knowledge that have already been discovered and organized in various subjects.
ii. The programme of Activities
Many educators see this programme as a way of vitalizing the curriculum. It takes the idea of curriculum beyond mere “content”. Thus is because sometimes the amount of content learned may not correlate with the expected change in behavior of the learner. It is necessary for the educational programme to include actual learner’s experiences as contrasted to cultural experiences as established in the contents of school subjects.
Therefore, the school is to be concerned with the learner getting used to experiences of a “method of facing life”. This means that we should help the learner to know how to do things, to learn even how to learn. It means the school should provide a student with a lot of activities in the course of learning. These activities are those ones we need to carry out in the course of teaching and learning in the classroom and the ones outside the classroom.
iii. The programme of Guidance
Guidance is a form of service to the student as well as the school and it enables the student to benefit fully from the school curriculum. Guidance services can serve the following purposes:
i. It can assist in making the educational process more personal to the learner by giving individual learner in accordance to his need.
ii. Programme of guidance assist students or the learner to discover their vocational, physical, educational and social responsibility as well as possibility.
iii. Help students recognize their moral responsibility.
iv. It can bring out satisfactory mutual adjustment for the school and the child
v. Guidance and counseling can also provide students with experience in the practice of making decision.
Question 2
To your mind, what should individuals trained under an area of technical specialization such as yours be capable of doing?
My area of technical specialization is automobile servicing and maintenance.
The job requires knowledge of how the automobile works and how to service and maintain it. The automobile technician should be capable of doing the following:
i. Preventive maintenance
ii. Repair of defects
Preventive maintenance means taking care of the car to prevent troubles i.e. checking the battery, tyres, front alignment, cooling system, brakes and steering at regular times are parts of preventive maintenance. Changing the engine oil, lubricating the chassis, and draining, flushing and refilling the cooling system are also parts of the preventive maintenance job.
Repair work is required when something wears, gets out of adjustment, breaks or has some other problem. Repair work is usually called auto motive service which includes working on every component of the automobile.
For the auto technician to be involved in automobile maintenance, he should be equipped with the knowledge and expertise to properly diagnose maintenance problems, prescribe workable solutions and where necessary, design improved alternative parts and system. This poses a big challenge to the automobile technician (Ogbonnoya, 1999).
Question 3
Ten (10) experiences which an automotive technician is expected to be exposed to during the training programme include the following:
1 The automobile and the service shop
2 Automotive engines
3 Automotive engines systems: Fuel, lubricating and cooling
4 Automotive electrical equipment
5 Automotive emission controls
6 Automotive engine service
7 Engine trouble diagnosis and tune-up
8 Automotive power trains
9 Automotive chassis: suspension, steering, brakes, tyres, air conditioning.
10 Automotive safety devices and safety inspection.
Further, today’s auto technician must be specially trained and equipped for on-board diagnostic technology to avoid potential errors in diagnosing car trouble codes and making appropriate repairs (Malone, 2006). To effectively service and repair today’s high tech vehicles, professional automotive technician must have training and experience in diverse range of subjects including welding and metal fabricating and hazardous waste handling. On the issue of control, various electronics sensors, circuits and computers control automobiles of today. The automobile service technician, must have sound knowledge of electrical problems found in the automobile.
Question 4
List at least five (5) challenges affecting curriculum planning in vocational and technical education.
The challenges affecting curriculum planning in Vocational and Technical Education include:
1 The Learner
Since children occupy a significant position in curriculum planning, they need to be considered as important factors in the whole educative process. For the curriculum planners in vocational and technical education to do well, they need to find out the nature of the learner (learners’ characteristics).
Beginning with the growth and development of learners, developmental psychology reveals that physical growth and development occur in stages from childhood right through adolescence into adulthood. The physical change in growth and development affect learners in many ways regarding the kinds of activities they are capable of undertaking, their emotional stage and pattern of their interactions with others.
2 Cultural and home backgrounds are also important factors to be considered which result in individual differences among learners. Such areas of differences that are easily seen are gender, size and ability to perform tasks. Curriculum planners will incorporate activities and opportunities to carter fro individual differences in the curriculum to produce the expected results.
3 The Society
For the curriculum to achieve its goals and objectives a good knowledge of the society, their interests, needs, aspirations, expectation and value system is vital. This helps the curriculum planners to know the type of society they are working for, whether technological or primitive, urban or rural, culturally homogeneous or heterogeneous. The knowledge of societies play an important role in curriculum planning.
4 The teacher
The teacher is the key to t success of every educational system. No wonder it is said that no education can rise above the level of its teacher. The teacher is very important in implementing the goals of every education. The success or failure of any proposed curriculum depends heavily on teachers because they are implementers. Therefore, they are the deciding factor in curriculum planning and as such should be involved in all the phase of planning.
5 Funding
More pronounced to vocational and technical education and all competency based educational programmes where manipulative skills are required, is the need to update equipment and instructions; periodically if the teacher expects to provide students with realistic instruction. The ever increasing costs associated with the purchase of high quality equipment in line with industrial requirement, make adequate funding an area of tremendous concern to vocational educator. Infrastructural facilities, equipment, supplies and instructional resources represent a major cost items involved in vocational technical education curriculum planning.