Education in emergencies: Development of a curriculum framework
The Learning Passport is a partnership between UNICEF and Cambridge University. The Cambridge partners developed curriculum frameworks for mathematics, science and literacy, alongside a programme to meet children’s social and emotional needs. The Learning Passport aims to support and supplement the education of those who are displaced or face barriers to learning because of poverty, discrimination, conflict or disaster. Cambridge Mathematics (CM) was instrumental in the mathematics development, supporting the design team in answering questions, including:
- which subdomains to use;
- the relationship between subdomains;
- which concepts overlap (leading to decisions to merge);
- which concepts are not necessary (leading to decisions to remove);
- which concepts are central (leading to decisions to retain); and
- whether the order of sequence is advisable.
This was achieved over four phases of activity.
Phase 1: Review, by Cambridge Mathematics, of a curriculum comparison carried out by the Assessment and Research Division of Cambridge Assessment. Identification of surplus and absent content.
Phase 2: Mapping, by Cambridge Mathematics, of key content to the Cambridge Mathematics Framework, analysis of immediate connected content and the landscape in which it is found. Identification of neighbourhood maps that provide a coherent connected curriculum.
Phase 3: Design, by Cambridge Mathematics, of new learning statements that incorporate all the content and align with the required unitised supplied structure (formatted as a table).
Phase 4: Collaboration with the external science lead to ensure curriculum coherence between mathematics and science. Adaptations made and mathematics curriculum structure and content finalised by Cambridge Mathematics.
In early 2020, UNICEF launched the Learning Passport, a partnership with Microsoft and the University of Cambridge. Information about the mathematics content can be found here.