Teacher Education Curriculum: A Comparison Between Laos, Thailand and Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT

In the new era of education, there is an urgent need to improve the quality of teaching and learning in order to speed up the process of national development. In many countries, the quality of education is heavily based on teacher education since teacher plays a major role in the process of teaching and learning in the new light of learner-centered pedagogy. As a result, teacher education is now a hot issue and many great achievements have been scored in many countries but there are still many things to be done for the promotion of knowledge- based society.

My paper deals with teacher education in 3 countries: Laos, Thailand and Sweden. The 3 educational institutions are Faculty of Education, National University of Laos (NUOL), Fac­ulty of Education, Mahasarakham University (MSU) and Stockholm Institute of Education (SIE).

The focal point of analysis is to compare the 3 curriculum of teacher education, Bachelor program in terms of concept behind curriculum, mission, organizational structure, and pro­gram offered as well as the future task of FOE, NUOL. The paper also includes some theoreti­cal approaches namely:

• Philosophy of Curriculum and Curriculum Development
• Social Constructivism
• Instructional Objectives
• Democracy/Individualization
• Classification and Framing

The main objective of the thesis is to find out similarities and differences among the 3 curriculums in the arena of formulation rather than the arena of implementation. This also includes the policy of teacher education and best teaching practices.

The expected outcome is to standardize and internationalize the teacher education cur­riculum of Faculty of Education, National University of Laos since there is an urgent need to develop the existing curriculum in the light of best practices from Faculty of Education, Mahasarakham University, Thailand and Stockholm Institute of Education, Sweden.