The curriculum reform drew much attention because of its emphasis on
creativity and character education. The goal of the curriculum reform was
to nurture students’ creativity and their consideration for others (Ministry of
Education, Science and Technology, 2009), and the revised curriculum was
named the ‘curriculum for creativity and personality education’. It aimed to
meet students’, schools’, communities’ and national needs; to develop students’
autonomy and creativity; to customise individual schools’ approaches, and to
improve quality (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, 2009).
The goals of the revised curriculum included the following (Park et al., 2010):
- To develop creative human resources that put consideration and sharing
into practice. - To organize the common curriculum (primary and middle schools) and the
elective one (high school) to be customized to meet students’ needs. - To implement the curriculum in a flexible way through enhanced transition
and cooperation between grades. - To reorganize the number of subjects and credits required for grades.
- To integrate creative hands-on activities into the individualized school
curriculum. - To improve the assessment system so as to provide feedback for quality
management.
The main changes identified in the revised curriculum included subject and
grade clustering, flexibility of time allotment, reduction of the number of
subjects per semester (referred to as ‘intensive course taking’), introduction
of creative hands-on activities, and reinforcement of career education (Park
et al., 2010, p. 123). In the revised curriculum the subjects are clustered and
the various grade levels are clustered. For example, Grades 1 and 2, Grades
3 and 4, and Grades 5 and 6 are introduced as three clustered grades (Park
et al., 2010, p. 123). The ‘intensive course taking’ allows students to concentrate
on the subjects they choose from a reduced number of subjects, instead of
dividing their attention among all of the subjects presented in the curriculum
(Park et al., 2010, p. 123).
One of the key elements of the revised curriculum, creative hands-on
activities, is given emphasis as an effective way of increasing creativity
and ensuring personality-focused education (Park et al., 2010). The new
curriculum divides the creative hands-on activities into four areas: autonomy,