Abstract:
New Zealand, like Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, has embarked upon a national programme to set, or in New Zealand's case reset, objectives for the English Language curriculum. This paper is about the developmental psychological bases for this enterprise in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The initiatives have created considerable controversy in Aotearoa/New Zealand, again paralleling developments in other countries. In a sense, this is a positive outcome in that it has focussed attention on the characteristics and functions of the centralised curriculum. The controversy has taken several forms. For example, by refusing to allow members to continue to work on its implementation the Secondary Teachers' union has used it to resist the bulk funding of teachers' salaries. This paper is concerned with two issues. The first is a matter of political accountability. Should educators including developmental psychologists involve themselves in the enterprise at this time ? The second, given a positive answer to the first, asks on what sorts of principles might a curriculum be based. However, before we discuss this in detail we need to comment on a preliminary concerns.