Curriculum Conceptualization and Development in Ethiopia: Manifestations of Progressive Curriculum Orientations

This paper examines curriculum conceptualization and development process in the Ethiopian education system against the perspectives of the notable progressive curriculum theories. To this purpose, the Ethiopian educational policy and curriculum documents are reviewed against progressive curriculum orientations stemmed from Beauchamp, Pinar and McNeil’s classifications of curriculum theories. The conceptualization of curriculum has suffered from dizziness and blurred classifications of theories by different scholars. In spite of the naming differences, value-oriented, child-centered, constructivists, re-conceptualists, social-reconstructionist, and humanist theories are regarded as progressive curriculum orientations. Based on thorough readings of the literature, we came to believe that all these theories emphasize on learners’ interests, needs and backgrounds either as an individual or as a group in the curriculum development process. Thus, the paper analyzes the manifestations of value-oriented, child-centered, constructivists, re-conceptualists, social-reconstructionists, and humanists’ theories in the whole education system of Ethiopia.