From Prescriptive Curriculum to Accreditation Standards

Abstract

Curriculum is defined as an educational experience(Kern, Thomas, & Hughes, 2010). It is not just syllabus but how a syllabus is selected, organized, taught and assessed? It includes ‘Mission and Outcomes’, ‘Faculty Development’, ‘Student Support’, ‘Governance’ and ‘Curriculum renewal’(Harden & Education, 1986). The quality of the curriculum is ensured by certain standards(Bendermacher, oude Egbrink, Wolfhagen, & Dolmans, 2017). These standards are either global as developed by World Federation of Medical Education (WFME) or National for e.g. in UK by General Medical Council, in USA by Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education etc. These standards provide an outline for the institutions to develop a curriculum(Karle, 2006). This approach provides flexibility, innovation, contextuality and variation but at the same time ensures uniformity of quality unlike the prescriptive curriculum provided by the regulatory body which bounds the institutes to follow same curriculum irrespective of their resources and expertise.