HEC B.Ed. Contemporary Issues Syllabus (Version A)
How to use this page
Study the article linked under each topic, then close it and write the main points in your own words. If you can explain a topic without looking, you know it. If you cannot, read it again. Work unit by unit rather than jumping around, since the units build on each other.
Unit 1: Globalization, the MDGs, and Education for All
Globalization and its effects on education
What globalization is, how it works through trade, technology, and travel, and how it pushes school systems to change. These articles are in the ICT in Education guide, which teaches globalization in depth.
The Millennium Development Goals: description, indicators, and implementation
The eight MDGs, which two dealt with schooling, how they were put into practice, and why several targets were missed by 2015.
Education for All: description, indicators, and implementation
The six EFA goals set at Dakar, their 2015 targets, and what stalled. The same article compares EFA with the MDGs and examines the social implications of both.
Comparing the EFA goals and the MDGs
Why two global frameworks were set in the same year, where they overlap (primary education and gender), and how they differ.
Unit 2: Issues of Diversity
Diversity and its impact on education
What diversity means in a classroom, the grounds it covers, and how it affects learning and the wider society.
- Inclusive Education as a Trend and an Issue
- What Diverse Schooling Does to Society
- The Benefits of Inclusive Education
Approaches to addressing diversity
The main grounds of diversity a teacher meets, one article per ground: learning difficulties, language, religion, gender, culture, and economic status.
- Flexible Curricula for Every Learner (learning difficulties)
- What Language Should Schools Teach In (language)
- Religion, Minorities, and Schooling (religion)
- Gender Disparity in Schooling (gender)
- Socio-Cultural Barriers and Reform (culture)
- Poverty and the Roots of Unequal Learning (economic status)
The role of education in addressing diversity, and inclusive pedagogy
How schools can reduce the barriers diversity raises, and the classroom strategies that make a lesson work for a mixed group.
- Socio-Cultural Barriers and Reform
- Attitudes and Values in Inclusive Classrooms
- Flexible Curricula for Every Learner
Unit 3: The Role of Peace Education
Introduction to peace education and societal factors affecting peace
What peace and peace education mean, negative and positive peace, and how inequality in society feeds conflict.
- Why Peace Education Matters
- Defining Peace and Peace Education
- What Peace Means: Equality and Violence
The major forms of conflict in society
The sources of conflict, from prejudice to unmet needs, and the different forms violence takes.
Conflicts in schools: tolerance, bullying, violence, and resolution
Bullying and violence in the school, teaching tolerance, and the styles and steps for settling a dispute.
- Bullying and Violence in Schools
- Attitudes That Build Peace
- The Five Conflict Modes
- Handling Difficult Behavior Constructively
Peace education as a strategy for conflict resolution, and its link to society
How peace education works as conflict-resolution work, and how peace ties to the development of a society.
- Attitudes and the Case for Peace Education
- The History and Practice of Peace Education
- Building a Culture of Peace
Project on a selected conflict
This week is a practical class project, not a topic to read: pick a real conflict, analyse it, and present your findings. Use the article below as the method, and draw on the conflict articles above for the analysis.
Unit 4: The Role of Schools in Addressing Contemporary Issues
The relationship between school and society, and schools as social agents and critics
How schools and society shape each other, how a school passes society on as a social agent, and how it can question and improve society as a social critic.
- Schools as Social Agents and Active Citizens
- Social Cohesion and Common Schooling
- What Diverse Schooling Does to Society
Active citizens, workers and professionals, and democratic education
How schools form active citizens and impart democratic habits, and how they prepare workers and professionals for the economy.
- Schools as Social Agents and Active Citizens
- The Skills Employers Now Demand
- Technology and Workplace Readiness
Character education, skills development, and the quality of schooling
Character education and how it differs from job skills, plus the factors that decide the quality of a school and the issues schools face.
- Schools as Social Agents and Active Citizens
- Quality and Relevance in Basic and Secondary Education
- Judging Quality in Private Schools
- Supply-Side and General Pressures
Unit 5: The Changing Role of the Teacher
The various roles of a teacher and the duty to value all learners
The range of roles a teacher fills beyond explaining lessons, why the job keeps widening, and the responsibility to value every learner.
Teachers as change agents, and external issues affecting performance
What it means to call a teacher a change agent, and the outside factors, from class size to community support, that shape a teacher’s work.
Internal issues affecting performance, and strategies to handle them
The factors within the teacher, such as skill, motivation, and health, and the strategies a teacher can use to work well despite the pressures.
Teaching skills for critical thinking and communication
How a teacher builds critical thinking and communication in students, and the skills that peace education and the knowledge economy both call for.
This guide covers much more than this one syllabus, including population, environmental, and technology education. Those chapters are extra context, not part of this course outline.