Exploring the competency-based approach curriculum in secondary education in Mali with the core players’ experiences

ABSTRACT

Curricular reforms oftentimes cause more problems than they solve. Teachers’ being kept out of curricular activities is one main reason for a reform to plummet. In this qualitative study, we examined the Malian curricular policy from two aspects—reform and teaching and learning. Guided by Fischer’s argumentative approach theory, this analysis involved 18 participants. While officials and principals were interviewed, teachers were both interviewed and observed. We tried to elaborate on the power of arguments to further principals’ and teachers’ concerns and needs in curriculum related tasks. We discovered that CBA reform has the potential to harness learner’s chances to learn better. The identified challenges like the intricate dialogue between authorities and teachers need to be lifted to unlock the full potentiality of the reform and achieve goals. We also found that advocating for teachers’ inclusion in curriculum-making remains as important as upskilling teachers’ competence to contribute to curriculum processes. (Re-)Designing standardized textbooks can address the issues of curriculum content overload and concept opacity. This can also help unify practices and align content with contextual norms. To curb congestion, a typical phenomenon in resources-scarce areas like Mali, more classes or schools should mushroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Competency-based approach curriculum (CBA)
• policy analysis
• teacher’s voice
• curricular reform
• argumentative approach

Acknowledgments

We want to thank all our partners, research assistants, and participants for partaking in this research and supporting our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).