Professional development for teachers
Teachers need to be adequately prepared to implement a state-of-the-art
ICT curriculum. Indeed, introducing any new curriculum calls for careful
preparation, management, resourcing, and continuing support.
In the case of an ICT curriculum, even more concerns have to be
considered. Educational research studies show that programmes of professional
development for teachers are most effective if directed to the
stage of ICT development reached by schools. The implications of these
research findings are that teacher development is best conceived as an ongoing
process, with many professional development activities conducted
in schools.
VARYING CONDITIONS ACROSS COUNTRIES
Circumstances and resources vary markedly between countries, all of
which will impact on the implementation of any new ICT curriculum and
will affect how educational systems cope with change.
Coping with change
Rapid developments in ICT are difficult to manage for Ministries of
Education, educational managers, and schools. A situation of constant
change is also confronting to teaching staff and publishers. This ICT
curriculum has been designed to help cope with these developments
and situations of change. It helps Ministries of Education to develop a
systematic and controlled secondary education ICT policy. It also
helps schools to develop ICT systematically and effectively in their
programmes, if need be from scratch.
Local circumstances
Circumstances vary between countries and between schools within a
country, and implementation factors have therefore to be taken into
account when designing ICT curricula. The ICT curriculum presented
here offers to countries and schools a development framework that takes
account of these variations between countries and schools