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This paper aims to examine the variety of approaches to curriculum development for enterprise education developed for schools, further, and higher education under an Entrepreneurship Action Plan in Wales and to consider the sustainability issues for delivery in these sectors.

This investigation adopted a case study approach that obtained post‐development information obtained from stakeholders in curriculum development in the three sectors based on semi‐structured interviews. The paper presents an analysis of the curriculum development initiatives in schools, further and higher education based on a three‐stage categorisation model: inspiration, information and implementation and activities involving cross‐sector approaches.

Stakeholders generally provided positive feedback toward the curriculum development material from each sector. Curriculum development applied to fostering enterprising qualities and practical support produced a broad span of diverse actions across Wales covering inspiring, information and implementation. There are consistent threads in enterprise content of attitude, creativity, relationships and organisation. Curriculum content needs to be maintained and updated in a sustainable way and a sustainability framework is proposed together with a set of recommendations for each sector.

Suggestions on how to further strengthen and develop the sustainability of enterprise education programmes are provided for the three sectors: schools, further, and higher education, for example, through centralised curriculum support, the extension of credit‐based courses and structured staff development for stakeholders.

Enterprise education is acknowledged to have an influence on the knowledge, skills and attitudes of students and can contribute to entrepreneurship. Curriculum development in enterprise education enables educational institutions to stimulate interest of students and to foster entrepreneurial qualities among potential entrepreneurs in society. Approaches to curriculum development for three educational sectors are examined, categorised and recommendations advanced for sustaining such enterprise education programmes over an extended period of time.

As universities grapple with the question of how to prepare students for increasingly uncertain futures, the development of evidence-based frameworks to guide academic program¹ design is critical. Here, we propose a strategic framework with a high impact on program design, implementation, and evaluation as well as mentoring and support for academic program leaders. High impact can be achieved when program leaders are enabled to embed key future-focused capabilities and skills across the curriculum in a program. In order to ensure that these capabilities are systematically and cohesively embedded in students’ learning journeys, we suggest that academic program leaders (e.g., Directors of Studies, Subject Area Coordinators, etc.) require strategic approaches to program design, implementation, and evaluation, as well as mentoring and support. Such approaches would ensure that high impact practices are consistently employed, rather than being the exception in isolated courses.² At Queensland University of Technology, we have developed a holistic model to support “whole-of-program” design for award programs across faculties and disciplines, in a coherent and strategic way. The model we use is based on a framework for curriculum design called the Future Focused Curriculum Design Framework (FFCF), and is an iterative model that places learners at the center of their learning to enable meaningful change to the design of programs. The adoption of the framework is supported by curriculum design studios situated within each discipline-specific faculty,³ which are made up of curriculum and learning designers, working closely with academics in different faculties. A key element of the process is that curriculum design studios enable relationships and communities to develop (Wenger et al., 2002), which in turn allows for contextualized practice. This holistic model supports whole-of-program design for award programs, in a coherent and strategic way and enables communities of practice to emerge in an iterative manner. In this chapter, we share our experiences with using this model and the impacts it has achieved, and we reflect on ways it be adapted for future use and in other contexts.

This chapter addresses the balancing act between curriculum guidance and curriculum space, against the backdrop of an integral curriculum review at the national/macro level in the Netherlands, labelled ‘Curriculum.nu’. As part of this review initiative, many choices have to be made, reflecting answers to the following two questions: What balance is needed between curriculum regulation at the macro level and the provision of curricular space for schools at the meso and the micro level? And, what are the related responsibilities of all involved in the educational system web in order to make the curriculum change successful? Before getting to tentative answers, the chapter will provide an introduction to curriculum policy in the Netherlands and will offer an overview of the motives, aims, approaches and preliminary results of Curriculum.nu. The provisional answers include a set of research-informed principles for making the curriculum review efforts a success, including a call for dovetailing the various curriculum layers and for a strategic curriculum mix of room for school-specific decision-making, substantive guidance, support by exemplification and firm investments in professional development.

The purpose of this chapter is to examine what it means for students with extensive support needs (ESN) to have opportunities to learn (OTL), why OTL is inexplicably tied to inclusive practices, and the in-school and post-school outcomes when students have OTL. Research will be provided that supports positive in-school and post-school outcomes, when students are provided equitable learning opportunities in inclusive contexts. Given the difference in possible outcomes for students with ESN when they do and do not have OTL, excluding them from general education contexts, where they have the best access to the intended and enacted curricula, is both unethical and limiting to society as a whole.

Embedding citizenship and sustainability into higher education curricula is vital for ensuring that curricula remain up-to-date and support students with the skills and knowledge they need for our ever-changing world. But the conceptualisation of the term “sustainability” radically affects its perceived relevance for curriculum design, and hence the recognition of where education for sustainability is already embedded within a curriculum. Here we present a student-designed, freely accessible workshop, which can be used by colleagues off-the-shelf to challenge workshop participants to reconsider their understanding of sustainability and recognise its vast scope. The workshop is provocative yet encourages collaboration, drawing on participants' prior experiences to identify sustainability concepts already embedded within their course, and opportunities to further enhance the inclusion of sustainability in the curriculum. The workshop is also fully supportive of the increasing recognition of the value of engaging students, and others, as partners in curriculum development.

International students, specifically students who study English for Academic Purposes (EAP), are an increasingly important and large part of the makeup of Canadian post-secondary institutions. As these students have diverse learning needs and goals, institutions need to properly support these learners to be successful in academic settings. A review of the literature explores the increasing need to support this particular student population; approaches to the teaching, learning, and programming of EAP courses and programs; and strategies in and beyond the classroom to support these learners. This chapter offers design considerations and suggests that EAP curricula be integrative in nature. This can be achieved through choosing relevant topics, incorporating experiential learning opportunities, designing collaborative learning tasks, discussing issues of culture, and planning purposeful community connections. Approaching the development of EAP curricula through an integrative lens will ensure learners who are ready for post-secondary studies in academic fields. Classroom examples from the author’s professional experience are offered. Discussion of how to achieve integrative EAP curricula in virtual learning environments is also included.

The digitalization of society places new demands on education. It is apparent since most countries have introduced curricula requirements to digitalize teaching. This study examines the organizational support teachers need to digitalize teaching. The study is being conducted in Sweden because they have experienced challenges with the introduction of new national digitalization requirements. Thus, this study explores the following research question: What organizational support do Swedish teachers describe they need to meet the curriculum requirements for digitalization?

Cultural–historical activity theory and qualitative methods have been used to explore the research aim and answer the question.

The results show that teachers need organizational support to gain equal and easy access to digital tools. Moreover, digital tools in an organization must be relevantly related to the requirements. Teachers also need support to increase their knowledge as well as the knowledge of the students. Also, organizations must support teachers by distributing the work of digitalization clearly and reasonably. These results, thus, show that teachers cannot be solely responsible for meeting these curriculum requirements. They need organizational support in the process.

The study reveals teachers' recurring problems concerning digitalized education and their need for organizational support. Thereby, the knowledge can be used to avoid similar problems, in organizations on different society levels. This contribution is useful for organizations, politicians, school leaders, principals and teachers who are introducing 1:1 and new curriculum requirements for digitalization of education.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the national education standard (curriculum, NC) supports the development of enterprising behaviour and the constructivist approach to learning at the general education level?

New methodology was designed based on the assessment of the evidence and frequency of the incidence of the indicators supporting enterprising behaviour in the text of the NC. A content analysis method is used to systematically code and categorize the target indicators from the text of the NC. According to the frequency of indicators that support enterprising behaviour the extent of support is assessed in different parts of the NC.

The findings of this study show that, while the general part of the NC fully reflects the development of attitudes and skills related to enterprising behaviour, in the competences and learning outcomes of the other parts of the NC, some indicators of enterprising behaviour have only moderate support. This shows that entrepreneurial attitudes are not fully recognized as an educational aim in general education, and for the purposes of moving from a behaviourist to a constructivist educational approach, rethinking and reformulating the learning outcomes in the NC is necessary.

The critical aspects are: first, NC formats may differ between countries, and hence, the suggested analysis may suffer from limited replicability; second, the most critical aspect is that the present work analyses only the learning outcomes of the written NC, which is the basis for real action in the classroom.

The contribution of the current study may be summed up in three main issues: first, methodology for evaluating the extent to which the NC supports the development of enterprising behaviour; second, the need to rethink and reformulate the learning outcomes in the NC (e.g. for natural sciences); and third, evidence of the conflict between the expectations of society and the aims of education. The research results are providing objective feedback to educational experts, policymakers and practitioners to help schools innovate and support the education of enterprising people in general education.

The research is an initiative supported by society and directed to support the learning of entrepreneurial behaviour of pupils at the schools of general education and use of constructivist learning approach.

The current study is contributing to the methodology of analysing the written national curricula at the general education level for identification the evidence and frequency of the indicators of enterprising behaviour in different parts of curriculum. The methodology elaborated and the results of this study may be considered applicable for the analysis of NC in other countries. In the future, the NC in connection with real teaching practice should be studied, focusing on finding new solutions to support the education of enterprising people in schools.

To cope with the challenges of the twenty‐first century, the Hong Kong SAR government initiated the Curriculum Reform in 2001. In 2006, a research team from a tertiary institution was commissioned to review the progress of change for smooth implementation of the reform in its next phase. This paper aims to examine this issue.

The nature of the review is basically a survey, applying questionnaires and follow‐up focus‐group interviews to collect data from different groups of subjects. The sample was around 20 per cent of the population, i.e. a total of 252 primary (n=138) and secondary (n=114) schools.

The paper reports findings on the support for the Reform by primary and secondary schools. Five areas of agreement among school heads are examined, which include challenges to be met, guiding principles of the reform, learning goals, reform framework and the overall agreement with the rationale of the reform. It is found that, while the curriculum reform was supported among school heads, senior teachers and teachers, there was a gap between the views of senior management team and frontier teachers.

This is a very comprehensive research project with a limited timeframe. The paper can only report and discuss findings mainly on the support for curriculum reform by school heads. Other aspects of the study will be discussed and reported separately in subsequent papers.

The gap between the views of senior management team and frontier teachers is worth probing as this is the most obstructive factor to the implementation of the reform. Identifying the cause would be the first step in formulating strategies to address and, hopefully, to facilitate the smooth transition from the phase of implementation to the continuation phase of the change process.

The study has suggested the development of a two‐dimensional framework of agreement areas and stakeholders which will contribute to a better understanding of the change process in general, and achievements of a curriculum reform in particular. Other issues are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to briefly describe the role of lesson study in implementation of national curriculum reforms in Japan, identifying key features that may be of interest to policy-makers in other countries.

Literature review, observation, and artefact collection were used to study the role of lesson study in educational reform in Japan.

One key characteristic of implementation of national curricular reforms in Japan is that lesson study allows primary and secondary schools, universities, district and prefectural offices, and subject-matter associations to collaborate in implementation. Some key features of the lesson study-supported system of implementation of curricular reform in Japan includes: the ability of school-based lesson study groups to leverage regional and national subject-matter expertise; school learning routines that enable systematic study, refinement, and dissemination of practice (e.g. kyouzai kenkyuu, public research lessons, grade-level collaboration); and policy structures that support implementation (e.g. grants for designated research schools, a period to try out new standards before they are required by law).

While some features of lesson study transfer readily from Japan to other countries (such as the usefulness of curriculum study, live lessons, and interchange with more experienced teachers), comprehensive systems for using lesson study to support curricular reform are yet to develop outside Japan. This paper identifies the policy, cultural, and infrastructural elements of the Japanese system that allow lesson study to effectively support implementation of new curriculum.

Successful implementation of curricular reform at the classroom level is a persistent difficulty in many countries. Japan's system illustrates how the strengths of teacher leadership and research-based content can be joined to support curriculum implementation, through interlocking systems of lesson study.