Teacher Involvement in School Curriculum Design and Development in the Philippines: A Case Study

Abstract

Curriculum is one of the major important aspects of education. It is the set of plans, objectives, and processes involved in educating people. While teachers are one of the stakeholders of the students’ education, however, they are not fully involved in planning or developing the curriculum. This limited involvement can have a negative impact on the quality of education. According to Taba’s theory, curriculum must be well structured and the structure must involve teachers. This case study aimed to explore teachers’ involvement in curriculum design and development in a private school in Cavite, Philippines. Individual interviews, as well as documents, were used in collecting data from the teachers and the principal. The data collected were analyzed according to Creswell’s process. This process consisted of organizing and preparing data, coding data, describing and generating categories and themes, and making interpretation of the findings. The results showed that teachers are considered merely as implementers of the school curriculum and as repercussion, they face a number of challenges in teaching. Some ways to get teachers more involved in school curriculum design and development are suggested in this paper.