EVALUATION OF ENGLISH CURRICULUM REFORM FOR UNDERGRADUATES BY USING THE CIPP MODEL

Abstract

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan proposed English curriculum reform for undergraduates in 2005 and revised it in 2012 which is still being implemented in public sector universities across Pakistan. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of this revised reform being implemented in a public sector university. The study sought to evaluate the conception of reform as outlined in the HEC’s document, Curriculum of English (Revised 2012). It also sought to evaluate the design of English curriculum developed for the public sector university according to the HEC document guidelines. The study further ventured a comparison of the curriculum document specifications with the contemplated design for identifying strengths and deficiencies of the reform in order to evaluate its effectiveness. The study used Daniel Stufflebeam’s Context, Input, Process, and Product (CIPP) model as a framework for evaluation. The study is based mainly on qualitative design and the data is collected through analysis of the curriculum document and of the curriculum developer’s interview. The evaluation revealed many strengths of the curriculum, its goals were found to address students’ language needs to develop their reading skills, writing skills, vocabulary, grammar, and communication skills. The evaluation also revealed some inadequacies including a lack of focus on listening and speaking skills, absence of provision for ongoing teacher training, and non-involvement of teachers in designing the curriculum reform. The findings indicated that the curriculum reform was potentially sustainable and effective, and the identified shortcomings could be addressed in future to obtain better outcomes from its implementation.