Comparative evaluation of the undergraduate curriculum of Persian language and literature in Afghanistan universities with Iran universities
Subject Areas : Interdisciplinary Literary Studies
عبدالوراح محمدی
1
,
احمد رضی
2
,
محمدعلی خزانه دارلو
3
1 -
2 -
3 -
Keywords:
Abstract :
Comparative evaluation of the undergraduate curriculum of Persian language and literature in Afghanistan universities with Iran universities
Abdul Varah Mohammadi*
Ahmad Razi**
Mohammad Ali Khazaneh Darlu***
Curriculum is one of the pillars of successful education at different educational levels. Taking advantage of the experiences of different country's educational systems can lead to the qualitative improvement of the curriculum. In this research, using "Hilda Taba's" seven elements of curriculum planning, the undergraduate curriculum of Persian language and literature of Afghanistan universities was compared with the curriculum of Iranian universities, its weaknesses and strengths are shown, and suggestions for improvement of the curriculum of Afghanistan universities were provided. The present comparative study shows that despite the updates in the year 2022, this program, as it deserves, the student's educational, cultural, and social needs have not been met and has many weaknesses such as not paying attention to the realistic needs assessment, weakness in targeting, not predicting the method of evaluation and revising the topics, not paying attention to the student's practical skills, little attention to the literary prose and prose text, lack of elective units, lack of workshop units, lack of attention to contemporary literature, lack of attention to literary creation, lack of attention to the needs of the job market of this field, lack of resources introduced for lessons, lack of attention to advanced teaching methods and lack of attention to interdisciplinary courses.
Keywords: comparative criticism, teaching planning, Persian language teaching, Hilda Taba, and Persian literature.
The curriculum is one of the important elements of the academic education system, based on which education is predicted and offered to students step-by-step. The curriculum specifies which skills students should acquire during their studies and which knowledge and behaviors they should learn; therefore, modernizing and updating the curricula of educational centers is one of the urgent necessities of any educational institution. In addition to the curriculum, textbooks, professors, and students are the main pillars of the university education system, and paying attention to them is important to improve the quality of the university education system.
Comparative studies, or the examination of curricula in comparison with the curricula of other countries, pave the way for the modernization of the curriculum and keep the educational system in line with new changes and transformations by identifying the highlights and new experiences of others and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the curricula. Each country follows different paths and specific routes to achieve the defined goals of the curriculum. Recognizing the paths taken and the experienced ways is achieved through the comparison of the two curricula. Comparing the content of the curriculum can help to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the curricula. By examining the course titles, textbooks, teaching methods, and educational content, the scientific level and quality of education of the two countries can be evaluated. This comparison helps to identify successful teaching methods and educational programs in other countries and to use them in their own country. Therefore, comparison is necessary to improve the quality of the curriculum and is an important element of needs assessment.
Comparative studies of curricula between two countries can contribute to improving the quality of education, developing innovation, strengthening international cooperation, adapting to the needs of society and the labor market, cultural and social impacts, increasing transparency and accountability, strengthening national and cultural identity, improving evaluation methods, professional development of professors, promoting international competitiveness, developing effective educational policies, diversity in educational programs, improving teaching methods, developing vocational and technical education, improving continuing education and lifelong learning, developing educational justice and reducing educational inequalities, improving informal and extracurricular educational programs, developing digital and online education, developing environmental and sustainable education programs, and improving educational programs for the development of life skills.
The Persian Language and Literature Department of Afghanistan’s universities has been active since 1944 and made remarkable progress between 1949 and 1956. However, due to stagnant content and a lack of systematic needs assessment in the curriculum over the past decades, it has lost its necessary quality. The employment rate of graduates in this field is lower compared to other fields, and the scientific-specialized capacity of graduates is not satisfactory. The student admission score in this field is lower than in many other fields. The production of science and applied research in the field of literature in this country is very insignificant. The identity crisis of students in this field among other students is an important issue, and the scope of feeling inferior about being a literature student is becoming wider and wider every day. Because "when we have a negative view of the role we play, we simultaneously dislike ourselves. When we see that others do not have a positive evaluation of the role we have, or consider it an insignificant role, we imagine that our existence is not important, we feel 'inferiority'" (Rajabzadeh, 1384: 103).
Therefore, it is necessary to critique and examine the curriculum and some of the course titles of the bachelor's degree in Persian Language and Literature in Afghanistan in comparison with the curriculum and course titles of the Persian Language and Literature program in Iran, and to highlight its gaps and shortcomings, and to provide useful suggestions and solutions to update the curricula of Afghan universities, so that by correcting and updating it, the Persian Language and Literature program in Afghanistan can regain its necessary quality, more literary knowledge can be produced, and graduates of this field can better learn the expected knowledge, skills, and behavior.
The method of data collection is library-based and the research method is descriptive-analytical, which is carried out with a critical and comparative approach, and the type of research is documentary. This research is applied because it addresses the medium-term and short-term needs for reforming the curriculum of Afghan universities and its goal is to prepare, compile, or improve a new curriculum. This research is carried out based on the elements of Hilda Taba's curriculum, and the collected data are classified and processed by the content analysis method.
In this research, an effort is made to collect information related to the curriculum content of both countries in the form of tables and texts, and following the research questions, both curricula are analyzed. The logic of selecting and arranging the course units, as well as the goals of the two curricula, are compared with each other and evaluated by the new curriculum planning theories, and finally, the gaps and shortcomings of the Afghan curriculum are revealed, and an effort is made to provide constructive suggestions for preparing a comprehensive and complete program for the bachelor's degree in Persian Language and Literature at the University of Afghanistan.
Among the specific objectives of this research are describing the current state of education in this field in Afghan universities, evaluating the curriculum of this field in comparison with the curriculum of Iranian universities, identifying the new needs of the labor market for this field, and laying the groundwork for creating change and transformation in the education of this field, so that its graduates can meet those needs of society that are related to this field. Iran and Afghanistan are two major spheres of influence on the Persian language, and the people of these two countries, in addition to being neighbors, have deep and extensive cultural ties. Therefore, a comparative study of their curricula can lead to the evaluation and presentation of realistic suggestions.
The results of this research show that the existing curriculum in this field cannot meet the educational, cultural, and social needs of the students and improve their skills so that after graduation they can be absorbed into the labor market with the necessary skills. This curriculum is also not able to cultivate the talent of creating literary works in learners and empower them to understand, interpret, and analyze the texts of Persian literature. Since this curriculum is not for the needs of society and the labor market, if its graduate is employed in government offices, private organizations, etc., the employer is forced to re-educate the mentioned graduate and familiarize them with the work conditions and environment.
Currently, the most important shortcomings attributed to the curriculum content of Afghan universities are expressed as follows: lack of attention to literary creation, a purely knowledge-based approach to course content, lack of flexibility and variety in content, mismatch of content with the goal, lack of attention to the needs of society, lack of attention to the quality of content, lack of review of course content, lack of student participation in content selection, one-dimensionalization of learning resources, lack of entrepreneurship approach in content, lack of attention to learning experiences, and so on.
The textbooks for the bachelor's degree in Persian Language and Literature in Afghanistan also have many problems and issues: many of the textbooks are not in accordance with the curriculum; and do not have the characteristics of a suitable textbook (see Razi: 1388); the most important shortcomings of most of them are: not being comprehensive in content, not having content continuity, not having coherence of topics, not posing thought-provoking questions, addressing marginal explanations, little attention to systematic analysis and critique of texts, and...
The most important weaknesses of the new curriculum of this field in Afghan universities are: the large number of course units, so that the student takes 23 more units compared to Iranian universities; little attention to text reading, including prose and poetry texts, so that only seven and a half percent of the courses are dedicated to this, while at least 29 percent of the courses in Iranian universities are made up of prose and poetry texts, so that this number reaches 46 percent in the field of literary texts; little attention to contemporary literature and focus on classical literature; little attention to teaching Arabic, which is effective in understanding classical literary texts; lack of workshop courses, which leads to the weakness of the graduates' skill ability; little attention to interdisciplinary courses such as comparative literature, narratology, literature and media, etc.; weakness of textbooks commensurate with the goals and syllabus of the courses; few optional units; little attention to advanced teaching methods; excessive attention to ideology in determining course units; little attention to applied courses; seeing the goals of the program as broad, so that achieving all of them at the bachelor's level does not seem possible.
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* Ph.D. Student in Persian Language and Literature, University of Guilan, Iran.
warahmohammadi68@gmail.com
** Corresponding Author: Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, University of Guilan, Iran.
razi@guilan.ac.ir
*** Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, University of Guilan, Iran.
Khazaneh@guilan.ac.ir
