A Critical Comparative Analysis of Competency-Based Curriculum Reform in East Asian Countries

• In Event: Challenges and Possibilities of Teaching Innovation and Curriculum Reform

Proposal

Purposes
This study critically examines the Competency-Based Education (CBE) reform in East Asian countries, focusing on curriculum policies in South Korea and Taiwan. We explore how the global discourse surrounding CBE is constructed and legitimized in and through national curriculum reforms by analyzing competency-based curriculum policies. Using “Asia as method” (Chen, 2010) and “inter-referencing” as an epistemological re-orientation (Lim & Apple, 2018), we further aim to problematize Westernized epistemic coloniality in curriculum reforms, contributing to internationalize curriculum studies. Illuminating power dynamics in global flows and (re-)contextualization of knowledge and values around curriculum, we seek to expand the potential of curriculum policies and studies as sites for protest and democratic engagement toward justice.
Theoretical Background
CBE has gained considerable attention as a solution to align curriculum with the demands of the 21st-century knowledge economy. In a culture that emphasizes global economic competitiveness, competency-based curriculum reforms, underpinned by the logic of human capital development and national economic competitiveness, demonstrate neoliberal forces (Anderson-Levitt & Gardinier, 2021). These forces promote outcome-based accountability control by emphasizing measurable student performance and economic impacts, reinforcing neoliberal logic and managerial practices in education policies (Lingard & Sellar, 2016).
Although curriculum policies are situated within a global context of shared discourses, metrics, and pressures, they are also largely influenced by local contexts in structural and ideational ways. Thus, curriculum policy analysis can examine the interplay and underlying power dynamics of global forces and local development, as manifested in policy discourses, considering contextual landscapes (Zhao & Tröhler, 2021).
This study adopts a decolonial perspective to illuminate the power dynamics embedded in dominant curriculum policy discourses and reveal mechanisms of global domination mediated by curriculum policies. The decolonial approach critically examines the Eurocentric epistemologies that have historically dominated academic disciplines and societal frameworks (Shahjahan, 2011). While highlighting the coloniality of power within a global capitalist system, this approach question, challenge, and reframe normalized views and knowledge identified in global discourses, (re-)centering indigenous ways of knowing and being.
Based on the assumption that curriculum reforms are non-linear and complex processes intertwined with multi-layered global power relations, cultures, and epistemologies, this study is guided by the following research questions: 1) What are the key curriculum policy discourses related to CBE in South Korea and Taiwan? 2) What are the rationales and ideologies underlying these policy discourses in the context of globalization?
Methods
We chose South Korea and Taiwan as cases for analysis based on their shared cultural and historical backgrounds influenced by China and Confucianism, similar experiences of colonization, modernization, and democratization, and recent curriculum reforms emphasizing competency. The main curriculum policy documents published by the Ministry of Education served as a primary source of data. Specifically, we selected 1) The National Curriculum for the Primary and Secondary Schools (2015) and The Explanation of the 2015 Revised Curriculum (2016) for South Korea; 2) Curriculum Guidelines of 12-Year Basic Education (2014) for Taiwan.
Our analysis is grounded in critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2013) and a perspective that views policy as discourse (Ball, 2015) to highlight societal power relations by critiquing epistemic domination reinforced through policy discourses. We conducted a qualitative content analysis using a multiphase coding process (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). After developing an analytical protocol including methodological assumptions, sensitizing concepts, and key questions, informed by pilot analyses, we continued to refine codes by cross-checking individual coding, (re-)defining categories based on similarities and differences between two cases, and identifying overarching themes related to ideological stances and operational assumptions underlying the policies.
Preliminary Results
In both countries, developing competencies has emerged as a major curriculum goal, driven by the need to enhance national competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. By nurturing future talents and promoting lifelong learning, competency-based curriculum reforms aimed to foster individuals who can thrive in a global society, reflecting the influence of global neoliberal regimes, which prioritizes global economic competitiveness and individual accountability, on national education policies. The main rationale underlying these reforms centered on human capital development, intrinsically tied to neoliberal ideals of individualism and adaptability in a fast-changing and highly competitive global economy.
Although the competency-based curriculum reforms reflected tenets of progressive education like student-centered learning and aimed to counter the prevailing competition-based pedagogy, they run the risk of perpetuating pitfalls of performance-driven approaches that uphold neoliberal values and ideologies. This risk arose from a mere shift in focus from knowledge acquisition to measurable performances translated into competencies, especially considering that there have been no fundamental changes to college entrance examination systems where test-based accountability dominates teaching and learning.
While the adoption of competency was primarily justified from economic and functionalistic perspectives, local historical and cultural values also appeared in components of competencies and curriculum guidelines. For instance, in Korea, students’ holistic growth, appreciation of cultural and diverse values, and sense of community were highlighted as represented in aesthetic-emotional competency and civic competency. Similarly, in Taiwan, holistic development and whole-person education were connected to core competencies, valuing the common good, national identity, and cultural diversity.
This exemplifies the enduring heritage of Confucianism in East Asian education cultures, suggesting that specific competencies are contingent upon societal, historical, and cultural values and contextual needs, which can be contested with the globalizing pressures of neoliberalism (Zhao & Tröhler, 2021). While the reconciliation or foregrounding of collective values and identity, conflicting with neoliberal forces that promote individual achievements, remain unexamined in the competency-based curriculum reforms, these encounters encourage us to explore marginalized knowledge and values in curriculum policies, disrupting globally dominant Eurocentric epistemologies and rekindling indigenous knowledge and value systems.
Significance
This study uncovers the perpetuation of colonial legacies of the global imperial order within competency-based curriculum policies in East Asia, which underpin a neoliberal agenda influenced by a colonial economic paradigm (Shahjahan, 2011). Considering limited attention to the cultural particularities of curriculum policy analysis in non-Western contexts, this study can contribute to interrogating how dominant Eurocentric discourses on curriculum policy analysis may obfuscate a more nuanced understanding of curriculum in Asian contexts.

Authors

• Seungwoo Hwang, Michigan State University

• Yi-Chih Chiang