The School and Upbringing: Curricula Between Education and Teaching in the Algerian School

RESEARCH ARTICLE The School and Upbringing: Curricula Between Education and Teaching in the Algerian School Fatima Zohra Dr. Associate Professor-B Department of Psychology, University of 8 May 1945 Bouressace Guelma, Algeria Email Id: Rezkia Benchikh Dr. Associate Professor-A / Department of Psychology, University of 8 May 1945 Guelma, Algeria \ \ \ Email Id: Doi Serial / Keywords Algerian School, Curricula, Education, Teaching

• >    Received: 02.01.2025     Accepted: 27.04.2025             —I Published: 04.05.2025 (available online)

Statement of the Problem:

The school is an official social institution entrusted by society with the task of educating and teaching the youth based on educational curricula defined by the society and organized through its educational philosophy. The goal is to achieve diverse social, psychological, economic, political, and religious objectives. The Algerian school system has undergone several reform pects, underscoring its significance within society and the importance of its components, including teachers, learners, curricula, and educational tools and resources as inputs in the educational process leading to education and upbringing as its outputs.

Curricula are among the critical issues that have occupied educators' interests and attracted the attention of scholars and thinkers since ancient times. A review of stages affecting both its structural and functional as-   the characteristics of educational literature throughout

history and a follow-up on the trajectories of societies with their various cultures and civilizations reveal the elevated status and significant attention that education has received as a tool and a certain path to achieve what is better and nobler for the individual and society.

This importance has been increasingly emphasized with the development of sciences, the growing aspirations and ambitions of societies, and the changing social concepts, individual and collective philosophies. Nations have become more aware than ever of the reality that cultural revival, social development, and economic growth are linked to educational systems and their objectives. Curricula play a pivotal role in developing learners' abilities and equipping them with superior experiences capable of creativity and innovation to face major civilizational changes. More importantly, they contribute positively to the desired civilizational construction and achieving the desired future horizons, not only at the local level but also globally.

In this context, the Algerian school, as a social and educational environment through its curricula, aims to achieve numerous objectives. Despite variations due to the educational reforms it has undergone, these objectives consistently focus on two main goals: "education by providing students with knowledge to meet their professional life needs and upbringing by instilling social characteristics to cope with societal changes and growth (scientific, technological, social progress, etc.), thus preparing individuals capable of dealing with development requirements."

Therefore, the Algerian school strives to achieve both education and upbringing simultaneously by providing the youth with educational and teaching contents within diverse curricula across the three educational stages. Based on the above, this study seeks to answer the following main questions: What are the most important educational and teaching contents of the curricula in the Algerian school? What are the foundations of their construction? What significant changes have these curricula undergone?

Defining the Concepts:

• •    The Algerian School:

The official institution entrusted by Algerian society with the task of upbringing and educating the youth according to curricula derived from the educational philosophy of society. The school as a system includes inputs and outputs as follows:

o Inputs: Include all material capabilities such as school facilities including buildings, laboratories, workshops, devices, educational and administrative tools, textbooks, school libraries, activity yards, etc., and human capabilities such as administrators, technicians, teachers, and learners, as well as internal processes related to good internal organization, objective evaluation methods, and methods of guidance and school counseling.

o Outputs: Include all the material and moral products produced by the school system, comprising the number of graduated students and the total knowledge, concepts, educational experiences, technical skills, and social attitudes they have acquired, measured by the academic achievement level of learners in each school.

• •    Upbringing (Education):

o Linguistically: Upbringing comes from the verb raba meaning "to grow and increase." It is said that someone "rabb a " a child, meaning he fed, raised, nurtured, and developed the child's physical, mental, and moral powers.

o Terminologically : It has many definitions, among them:

■ The definition by Saleh Abdul Aziz and his colleague: "It is every process, effort, or influential activity on the child's powers and formation, whether increasing, decreasing, improving, or deteriorating, whether this process originates from the child himself or from the natural or social environment. The child is continuously subject to changes in his physical and mental formation, and these processes are upbringing."

■ "It is a process that includes various acts and influences aimed at the individual's growth in all aspects of his personality and guides him towards the perfection of his functions through adapting to his surroundings, in terms of the patterns, behaviors, and abilities that these functions require."

■ "Upbringing is a continuous process that includes the educator, the educand, and the environment in which it takes place. It is a process of growth for the educand physically, emotionally, cognitively, skillfully, attitudinally, in feelings, intentions, behaviors, concepts, and actions—in other words, the full growth of the human personality as a whole, indivisible."

Therefore, upbringing is the process of developing the learner's personality in all physical, psychological, social, spiritual, ethical, and aesthetic aspects to facilitate his adaptation to social life.

Upbringing has inputs, processes, and outputs as follows:

• •    Inputs: Educational philosophy, educational goals, curricula, teachers and their preparation, characteristics of students.

• •    Processes: Teaching methods, communication, psychological counseling, school systems.

• •    Outputs: Decisions, characteristics of graduates, labor market.

Upbringing, to achieve the integrated development of the individual, depends on all the above elements comprehensively. It cannot achieve its goals except through school upbringing, which is embodied through the process of education.

• •    Teaching:

o Linguistically: Teaching comes from the verb 'allama , meaning "to teach." For example, "He taught him reading" means he made him know and understand it.

o Terminologically: It has multiple definitions, among them:

• ■    "It is the process by which the individual's environment is intentionally addressed to enable him to learn to produce certain behavioral elements or immerse in them under certain conditions as responses to specific situations."

• ■    "It is an effort by an individual or group to help the learner achieve his goal. This effort is the process of delivering knowledge, information, and experiences from teacher to learner, with the purpose of stimulating the learner and arousing his mental powers and selfactivity, and preparing conditions that enable learning."

Here, we conclude that teaching is linked to the mental and cognitive development of the learner by activating mental abilities such as memory, intelligence, and competence to acquire intellectual knowledge. Teaching is the intended side of the upbringing process that targets the development of the intellectual and cognitive aspect in the individual with the aim of absorbing knowledge that helps develop his psychological, physical, spiritual, and social aspects.

• •    Curricula:

The word "curriculum" or "method" was known among the Greeks with the root "Course," meaning a horse race track. It is known that the race track is defined and clear. Among Arabs, the word "nahj" or "manhaj" means the clear path. Most Arabic dictionaries (Lisan al-Arab, Al-Mujam Al-Waseet, Al-Qamus Al-Muheet, Maajim Al-Tullab or Munjid al-Lughah wal-I'lam) define "nahj ar-rajul nahjan" as dazzled, and "anhaja" someone means to pant; "nahj al-amr" means to clarify or explain; "anhaja at-tariq" means to take the path clearly and clarify it; also, "intahaj ar-rajul" means to take a path; "talab al-nahj" means the clear path.

Hence, "manhaj" or curriculum indicates the clear path, and from this comes "curriculum" meaning the methods or steps used by the teacher to achieve specific results.

Campbell et Caswell defined the curriculum generally and commonly as "the set of academic subjects and the total experiences directed to the learner, and it is a sequence of things that children and adolescents should do."

The curriculum varies depending on intellectual trends and philosophies, and consequently educational schools, which differed according to eras, societies, and cultures. For example, A. Binet defined it as a detailed statement of the sciences taught in school, set by public authority (i.e., policy). Others like Alexander and Saylor defined it as a detailed plan of the educational process.

The educational curriculum is a set of planned activities for forming the learner, including objectives, their evaluation, and the tools used in implementation (Deland-Sheere, 1980). It relates to all components involved in the didactic process including goals, contents, activities, evaluation methods, and teaching aids (Decorte, 1979). According to L. D’Hainaut (1983), the curriculum is broader than the syllabus; it is the planning of the pedagogical work and how education and learning will be evaluated. British theorist John Keer (1968) sees the curriculum as all organized and directed learning and acquisitions by the school, individually or collectively, inside or outside the institution.

Similarly, British philosopher Paul Hirst considers the curriculum as a specified program of activities through which students can reach, as much as possible, certain educational goals or aims.

Based on all the above, the curriculum is "that comprehensive plan consisting of objectives represented in competencies or output profiles as called by Algerian curricula—contents of academic subjects—pedagogical strategies, including teaching methods and teaching aids, and adopted evaluation methods. It is, therefore, everything the school offers and supervises within its surrounding environment aiming to achieve society's goals and meet its needs and aspirations."

• •    Concept of Curriculum Reform:

We often notice differences in using the term "reform" depending on scientific and professional fields, as well as language. The Educational Sciences Dictionary (Terminology of Pedagogy and Didactics) defines Ré-forme as "treatment," a project of change and development of the educational system within the process of innovation. Every system evolves from a lower level of relationships among its components to integration and then coherence (organization). The reform project, according to Havelock Huberman, depends on investing in and drawing resources from the environment, and its results are measured by its output. Claude le Lièvre states that educational reform occurs within institutional laws and projects. Despite conceptual differences, reform ultimately refers to the comprehensive, desired change and transition from an incorrect state or situation to a more correct and harmonious one with new realities.

Said Kettani says: "Educational reform is a sign of social dynamism and awareness of the necessity of adaptation and integration with the new developments imposed on all societies. Facing economic, cultural, and educational globalization, these societies have no option but to reform, renew, and adapt their systems in response to internal and external challenges. The renewing society centers itself amid existing challenges without estrangement in the past of great ancestors or the present of advanced others. Thus, if educational reform relies on importing ready-made educational expertise from outside its local environment, it creates estrangement in education and culture and a sense of non-belonging to its environment and culture, which is the beginning of the identity crisis."

Educational reforms, in their procedural concept, refer to the total measures and changes introduced to any educational system in terms of content, objectives, pedagogical approach, and evaluation measures, aiming to reach a new desirable state with specifications defined within goals predetermined by curriculum planners, whether it be a ministry, a planning authority, or simply a committee of specialists whose mission ends with the completion of the process.

• 2-    Previous Studies Related to the Study Topic:

  • 2.1    Study by the Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science: The Arab Organization for Education, Culture and Science conducted a study on the reality of learning in Arab countries. Its 2000 general report indicated that Arab educational systems are characterized by the following:

• •    Deficiencies and Weaknesses: Arab systems suffer from a lack of capacity to prepare individuals for productive, effective life in facing the challenges of the age. They focus on knowledge at the expense of attitudes, ideals, and values, leading to a decline in education quality.

• •    Centralized Educational Administration: Education management in the Arab world is traditional and highly centralized, politicizing education and making it a powerful tool to maintain the political system. Despite the widespread culture of informatics, education management is still based on last-century data. The Arab world needs management adopting development rather than mere administration, relying on decentralization, financial independence, quality plans, and total quality management.

• •    High Rate of Educational Loss: The Arab Organization recorded fluctuations in Arab educational spending relative to national income. Despite continuous increases in spending, educational outputs are unsatisfactory, lacking international or even local quality standards. They do not meet societal needs, making it necessary to restructure education to guarantee quality while reducing costs, following the principle of "quality is free" in total quality management.

• •    Stagnation of Curricula and Teaching Methods: Most Arab curricula suffer from illogical sequencing of fundamental educational system components, unclear goals, and disconnection between subjects, lacking modern teaching methods and effective inspection techniques. Planning follows a single top-down path without involving other parties. Given the massive global developments, these systems have no choice but radical comprehensive educational reforms adopting new educational, teaching, and administrative concepts.

• •    Disconnect Between Education and Labor Market: Education still depends on cramming the mind with the largest possible amounts of knowledge that learners must memorize, following the "banking education" model, unrelated to the labor world or professional qualification. This means that all spending on this sector is ineffective. For education to be a factory producing skills and competencies for the labor market to advance the nation, all educational and administrative plans must be reconsidered.

• •    Ineffectiveness of Evaluation: Improving educational efficiency and quality requires well-woven mechanisms for evaluation and precise monitoring of inputs and output quality, away from patch-ups done by teachers in classrooms or ad hoc system fixes that do not yield satisfactory results, only increasing quantity and lowering product quality.

• 2.2 - Study by Abdelali Dabla and Hanan Bounif titled “Algerian Curricula for Primary Education (An Evaluative Study)”

• 3 .2- Study by Abla Gharbi, titled “Environmental Education in Primary Schools from the Perspective of Learners – Schools of Constantine City as a Model” (2009)

•

We summarized this study in its main diagnosed points from which all other details derive.

The study aimed to evaluate the educational reforms of the National Reform Committee that affected the primary education stage and were applied starting from the 2003/2004 school year from the perspective of teachers.

The study adopted the descriptive method, applying a questionnaire form to 25 primary school teachers in the municipality of El Hamel, Bousaada, Saida Province. The study concluded that primary education teachers were dissatisfied with the reforms that affected the curricula, as they confirmed many negative points about the primary stage curricula, the most important of which were the overload of the curricula, the inability to achieve the objectives, their incompatibility with the allocated time, and the lack of educational tools that negatively affect the delivery of educational activities. Additionally, there was reliance on traditional methods of evaluation, which necessitates improving these curricula. The teachers proposed many solutions, the most important being: reducing the curriculum, decreasing the number of hours, and reducing the number of books that burden the children, with the necessity of involving parents in this matter, conducting training courses for teachers, and incorporating activities for entertainment and scientific achievement.

The results of this study confirmed, from the teachers’ point of view, the negatives of the curricula reforms for the 2003-2004 academic year, which were called the first-generation curricula characterized by their dense content, inability to achieve objectives, reliance on traditional evaluation methods based on tests and exams, and focusing on cramming the learners’ minds rather than focusing on the learner as the center of the educational and teaching process.

The study aimed to identify the reality of environmental education in primary schools by knowing the actual implementation of the ministerial environmental project and the content of the curriculum and its compatibility and coherence with the environmental situation in Algeria, as well as attempting to learn from teachers how environmental education was applied in reality. The study started from the main question: What is the reality of environmental education in Algerian primary schools? The general hypothesis was: The reality of environmental education in primary schools is characterized by a lack of harmony between theory and practice.

The following sub-hypotheses:

• •    The absence of teacher training and preparation affects the application of environmental education in primary schools.

• •    The prescribed curricula do not take into account the environmental situation in Algeria in primary schools, and these schools lack the educational tools for environmental study.

• •    Extracurricular activities related to environmental education are not applied in Algerian primary schools.

The researcher adopted the descriptive-analytical method, specifically a comprehensive survey of all primary schools in Constantine city, applying a questionnaire to 135 teachers distributed over 135 primary schools, considering that the environmental notebooks are directed to fourth-grade students accompanied by a teacher’s guide, and that students’ participation in the green club starts from the fourth grade. The study reached the following results:

• •    Environmental education is still neglected as primary schools lack the necessary educational tools, and teachers are not prepared, which hinders the implementation of school activities, especially extracurricular ones, to achieve the goals of environmental education.

• •    There is no harmony between theory and practice in the application of environmental education and its projects; the theoretical side dominates more than the practical side, as students and teachers do not carry out environmental activities such as voluntary cleaning campaigns, tree planting, educational trips, and other activities for environmental preservation.

• 4 .2- Study by Sabah Slimani titled: “Educational Curriculum Reform in Algeria Between Social Foundations and Global Challenges – The Civic Education Curriculum as a Model (2003-2011)” A doctoral thesis submitted for a PhD in Sociology, specialization in Development Sociology, Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Mohamed Khider University, Biskra, academic year 2011/2012. The study aimed to identify the subjects and goals addressed in the civic education textbooks under study, and the extent to which they reconcile the social foundations of the curriculum related to Algerian society and the global challenges it faces, the main sources used in formulating the educational content, and the main illustrative tools used in civic education textbooks to clarify ideas and deliver them to the learner. The study started with the main question: Did the reform in Algerian civic education textbooks reconcile the social foundations and global challenges? The following sub-questions:

• •    What is the extent of attention of the civic education textbooks under study to topics related to social foundations and to topics related to global challenges?

• •    Did the objectives defined in Algerian civic education textbooks reconcile social foundations and topics related to global challenges?

• •    Did the sources used in Algerian civic education textbooks reconcile social foundations and topics related to global challenges?

• •    What are the illustrative tools used to clarify educational content in civic education textbooks? The researcher adopted content analysis of civic education textbooks in primary and middle education and reached the following results:

• •    Civic education books focused more on the social foundations of the curriculum than on global challenges, with emphasis on identity and citizenship topics, starting with personal identity, customs, traditions, heritage, social cohesion and solidarity, and finally the civil and Arab belonging of Algerian society. Regarding national sovereignty symbols, the national flag took the lead, followed by the national anthem, the Algerian constitution, and finally the currency, the republic’s stamp, and indicators related to the capital.

• •    Regarding public and service institutions, court indicators ranked first, followed by the post office, then the province, then social security.

• •    Regarding environmental education indicators, pollution prevention ranked first, followed by energy consumption economy, preservation of green spaces,

This study clarified the extent to which primary education curricula focus on theoretical education for environmental protection and preservation without embodying it in practical behaviors stemming from learners and teachers, making the curricula more educational than educational in a comprehensive sense, where the learner receives knowledge and ideas theoretically but does not embody them as behaviors in reality.

and water conservation as indicators that direct learner behavior toward desirable environmental behavior.

• •    Regarding global challenges topics, the democracy education indicator ranked first, including citizenship and law, respect for others and rules of dealing with them, election indicator, indicator of establishing cultural and recreational associations, freedom of expression, and finally dialogue.

• •    Regarding human rights indicators, the right to insurance ranked first, followed by security and peace, then the right to education, human rights violations, right to health care, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right to family allowances, and finally the right to work.

• •    Regarding science and technology indicators, emphasis was placed on science and the development of societies first, then literacy fighters second, then science and work.

• •    Regarding Algeria’s relations with the international community, UNICEF ranked first, followed by the Red Crescent, then Algeria’s representation abroad, then the United Nations, the Arab League, and finally AL-ECSO.

• •    Regarding media and communication indicators, newspapers and magazines were ranked first, then the internet, satellites, mobile phones, and computers. Thus, the contents of civic education textbooks varied.

• •    Regarding internal goal categories, the goal of recognizing and preserving the environment ranked first, followed by recognizing national identity elements and documents, then recognizing national sovereignty symbols, religious and national holidays, social cohesion and solidarity, then recognizing civil and Arab belonging of Algerian society. As for global goal categories, they also varied, starting with democratic education, followed by human rights, then media and communication, then science and technology.

• •    Regarding internal sources, several sources were identified, with the Algerian constitution ranked first, then the Holy Quran, the Prophet’s Hadith, the school’s internal regulations, followed by national anthems. External sources included the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the first external source, then UNESCO, the UN Charter, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Institute for Civil and Political Rights, and Al-Arabi magazine.

• •    Regarding illustrative tools, they included photos, tables, symbols, logos, documents, shapes, maps, and graphs.

From this study, it can be concluded that the topics of civic education textbooks in primary and middle education are diverse, mostly developing elements of Algerian society’s specificity in the learner’s personality, including language, history, customs, traditions, and ways of celebrating religious and national holidays, using pictures where the learner relies primarily on vision in learning.

• 3-    Theories Explaining the Study:

• 3.2. - The Social Theory:

The theories addressing the curriculum have varied, and among the most important theories explaining our research topic are the following: 3- 1.The Academic Theory:

One of the oldest curriculum theories where content represents the foundation of the curriculum. It includes two directions: The first focuses on the subject curriculum, meaning the curriculum consists of purely academic subjects, justified by the school's role in transmitting culture. The second focuses on the structure of knowledge, where the ways of thinking of scholars dominate in all branches of knowledge in the curriculum. The learner is a recipient of knowledge, whether academic or cognitive, and the goal is for the learner to master reading, writing, and specialized scientific methods. The curriculum content includes classical sciences such as mathematics, arts, literature, and language. Regarding educational experiences, exercises and applications dominate when following the subject-based direction, and the opposite when following the knowledge construction direction, where the scientific method is the basis for educational experiences. Regarding evaluation, the subject-based direction focuses on the degree to which the learner masters basic skills, while the knowledge construction direction focuses on evaluating the learner’s ability to use inquiry and research methods.

From the above, we conclude that the academic theory focuses on the teacher as the transmitter of information, knowledge, ideas, and basic skills, with the learner being a passive recipient. According to this theory, the development of mental abilities comes at the expense of developing emotional, behavioral, and social aspects. Therefore, this theory emphasizes educational content more than the educational dimension of the curriculum.

Social experiences are the foundation of the curriculum, where the development of educational programs aligns with the learner and the social framework in which they live. Two prominent directions emerge in this curriculum:

• •    The Adaptive Direction: To help the learner adapt to society, meaning the learner receives the customs, traditions, and norms derived from the society's culture through exercises, applications, guidance, and simulation, where the learner’s acquisition of knowledge and skills is evaluated.

• •    The Reformative Direction: To prepare the learner to participate in social change and reform, where the learner plays a role in social change, reform, and active

participation in community building through the problem-solving method. Evaluation in this direction focuses on the learner’s ability to deal with social situations and problems.

• •    Paulo Freire: He established the foundations of education as a democratic practice of freedom based on active methods built on dialogue, criticism, preparation, and judgment as follows:

• 3.3-    The Cognitive Theory:

• 3.4. - The Humanistic Theory:

o Dialogue is the primary essential element of the curriculum and should be the new content of educational programs, as dialogue develops a sense of participation in public life, increasing the individual’s social and political responsibility.

o Education through dialogue starts from the learners’ life experiences, which Freire called immersion in private life.

o The learner creates their own culture: ensuring awareness and enlightening individuals about their culture, with the necessity that each participates in the collective and democratic construction of culture and history. The learner uses generative words in situations they live, being both the maker and subject of their own learning.

o Preparing critical thinking for the learner: through awareness of their society's problems and their position within it to enable easy adaptation to their situation.

o Preparing the individual for social intervention: meaning guiding the learner to be socially active to free themselves and their society. Thus, the curriculum should include educational content derived from the individual's culture, religion, customs, and traditions, making the educational content supportive of forming a conscious human personality that easily integrates with society and participates in its development and improvement.

Cognitive processes form the basis of curriculum formation, aiming to develop cognitive processes in the learner. According to this theory, the curriculum focuses on deduction, induction, and problem-solving skills, which the learner acquires through interaction with their environment and solving its problems. The learner has the ability to deal with information and find appropriate solutions to problems, aiming to develop the learner’s thinking skills such as inference, deduction, and other thinking patterns. Evaluation is built to measure the learner’s ability to understand and practice these mental processes.

According to this theory, the curriculum focuses on the learner instead of the study content, giving the learner great importance as the center and axis of the curriculum. The learner has the ability to make appropriate decisions if provided with suitable conditions and expe- riences and has internal motivations for learning. The curriculum aims to achieve the ideal development of the learner in growth, freedom, and perfection by providing educational content that aids discovery, innovation, and creativity, where the learner gains diverse experiences. Evaluation in this theory is based on the learner’s ability to perform processes rather than the quantity of their acquisition.

• 3.5.    The Islamic Theory:

This theory builds the curriculum on the basis of the Qur'an, the noble prophetic Sunnah, and Islamic heritage. The curriculum focuses on the individual, society, content, cognitive processes, and behavior. The learner is the center of the curriculum, living in and interacting with an Islamic society, aiming to be God’s vicegerent on earth and to raise a righteous person. The curriculum content is derived from legitimate sources such as the Qur'an, Sunnah, Islamic heritage, and acquired knowledge in language and sciences. Educational experiences are acquired through memorization and review of facts, and the learner’s evaluation is based on memorization and recall, in addition to comprehensive and personal evaluation of the learner. By presenting the main theories explaining the curriculum and previous studies addressing the curriculum topic, we conclude that the curriculum in Algerian schools can be explained in terms of its elements, goals, content, experiences, and evaluation methods based on most of the above theories comprehensively. These are purely academic curricula focusing on transmitting the society’s ideas and culture according to certain educational methods, while also focusing on shaping the learner’s personality and social upbringing according to society’s customs, traditions, and norms, making the individual capable of adapting to society. It also focuses on thinking skills as emphasized by cognitive theory. The focus on the learner remains theoretical in curricula, but in reality, the teacher is the source and center of the educational and pedagogical process. Also, according to the Islamic theory, the Algerian learner lives and interacts with a Muslim society, applying religious knowledge linked to their Islamic faith, which is part of their religious upbringing.

• 4-    Foundations for Curriculum Construction:

There is no longer a problem in defining the concept of educational curricula, as all experts agree that it must be comprehensive of all aspects of experience, personality, and society. However, this comprehensiveness is not always realistic or practical; priorities should be identified and attention given to the more important aspects during actual curriculum planning, specifically when determining goals and content. Here, a major problem arises. The disagreement returns as psychologists and educators emphasize making the learner the center and goal of the educational process, while sociologists stress social normalization, community building, preserving the culture, and developing primary social systems as priorities in curriculum planning and goal setting. Far from all this, politicians and economists determine priorities suitable to them, where educational goals should be adapted, if not stamped, with political and ideological objectives, considered red lines that must not be crossed. Although curriculum goals appear educational and pedagogical and governed only by scientific educational planning rules, they actually clash with these red lines, which have become a fundamental part of curriculum construction.

Educational objectives for curricula are derived from three sources:

• •    Philosophical source: The type of educational objectives is linked to the educational philosophy of society, which serves as a reference framework for deriving those objectives. The school is always the tool for society to implement its educational policy. When setting educational goals, the society’s educational philosophy aligned with the general philosophy underpinning the social and economic system is always consulted. This educational philosophy becomes a standard for defining objectives, selecting curriculum content, and choosing suitable means to achieve it.

• •    Psychological and physical source: Educational objectives are determined by focusing on the nature of learning and the learner simultaneously, adopting a psychological learning theory over others.

• •    Socio-economic source: The educational system is linked to the social, political, and economic system, so educational objectives vary according to societal systems. Because through its educational curricula, the school embodies all social system elements to make individuals and citizens who feel social belonging.

School education allows the development of scientific and technological knowledge to obtain suitable jobs, teaches young people social customs, traditions, and standards, and provides them with behavioral patterns, thinking modes, feelings, and cultural stimuli to respond to according to reward and punishment criteria. It also develops aesthetic and moral interests and loyalty to the group and society.

The school achieves educational goals represented by the learner acquiring knowledge, skills, and abilities according to adopted evaluation methods. It also achieves educational goals, including increasing the learner’s ability to socially interact, understanding their abilities’ nature and dimensions, and properly directing the development of these abilities. It also helps acquire values and behavioral patterns starting from primary education, such as self-reliance, independence, cooperation, individual and group work, respect for others, self-control, among others.

• 5-    Strategies for Curriculum Reform:

The developments in life have necessarily led to developments in educational programs. Instead of offering annual curricula, education now seeks specific programs with clear timeframes, goals, and outcomes, integrating educational materials within a framework that enables skilled and effective performance adapted to all educational situations and social situations outside school. Deep transformations have emerged in the last three decades, marked by the information age, communications revolution, and the beginning of a new global system relying less on ideological wars and more on communication wars, genetics, and market economies. Faced with this rapid acceleration, societies have resorted to changing curricula and reforming educational systems to form individuals capable of keeping pace with this development. Thus, new curricula should focus on the individual and consider knowledge a means, not an end, seeking to meet society’s demands and satisfy individual needs as their core and ultimate goal.

Educational and social scientists identified educational reform strategies in two directions: 1- In terms of form:

• •    The Rational Strategy: Based on specific intellectual foundations, relying on scientific studies and requiring the readiness and conviction of the targeted people due to its objectivity.

• •    The Directive Strategy: Based on attracting the attention of the concerned people, investing their emotions, gaining their trust, modifying their attitudes and directions to participate in change, and implementing what is required.

• •    The Political-Administrative Strategy: Based on the effective power of political and administrative authority, assuming individuals’ compliance and implementation without resistance due to the strength of legislation and legal directives accompanying change. 2- In terms of content:

• •    The Linear Continuity Strategy: Aims to extend the present into the future linearly, following current trends without modification, and is the methodology used in most Arab and underdeveloped countries.

• •    The Partial Reform Strategy for Internal Sufficiency: Adopts some attempts to reform limited and scattered aspects of school education, such as curricula, methods, and textbooks, without relying on educational research or local reform planning. It depends on general ideas about educational reform, mimicking global directions common in developed countries.

• •    The Partial Reform Strategy for External Sufficiency: Seeks to achieve harmony between educational reforms and economic growth by preparing human resources to meet labor market demands, especially for technical workers. It thus achieves partial external sufficiency because it does not start from a comprehensive, integrated vision of the educational system.

• •    The Comprehensive Educational Renewal Strategy: Relies on educational research and modern educational thinking within the relationships between the educational system and other systems, including economic, political, and cultural. The Arab Organization for Education, Culture, and Science affiliated with the Arab League called for comprehensive educational renewal strategies, not only at the national level but covering all Arab countries to meet regional requirements and solve problems, with the necessity of cooperation, integration, and solidarity to invest human resources.

• 6-    Educational and Instructional Contents of Curricula:

The school’s primary task is education, reaching the highest levels of organization and instruction. The educational process consists of organized activities conducted at school under the supervision of teaching staff to educate learners. Muhammad Saeed emphasizes that educational effects appear immediately, whereas educational impacts are noticed only after a long time. There is no correlation between the amount of information and the educational effects it leaves on the learner. Through educational curricula, we teach knowledge, information, skills, and ideas, expecting to nurture learners to develop their thinking, imagination, national feeling, habits, self-control, and selfregulation—all educational aspects of the learning process that appear after a long time.

The school is not merely a place for the individual to acquire a set of experiences, knowledge, and skills, but it works to achieve the comprehensive growth demands of the student through its educational environment via sports and social activities. In other words, it provides a suitable social environment for the growth of their abilities, tendencies, and satisfaction of their needs, which helps them with social adaptation and emotional stability. This reduces the chances of deviation and breaking the prevailing social norms in society.

Here we reach the point that education and upbringing complement each other and cannot be separated when preparing any curriculum. Education achieves learning, and embodying learning in reality is what we call upbringing. "Limiting oneself to knowledge acquisition and comprehension is education, and if that knowledge is reflected practically in the individual's behavior as values, habits, tastes, and skills, then it is upbringing."

Educational goals are linked to the social and cultural conditions of a particular society, and the school reflects these conditions and derives its goals from them. This explains the differences in educational goals from one society to another. As for educational objectives, they stem from the educational goal, which is procedural and specific, related to performance and behavior, and an educational outcome indicating that the learner has achieved what was intended for them to learn. It is measurable and can be quantitatively expressed, as educational objectives are the starting point in planning the curriculum.

The importance of the school as a social-educational environment emerges from its role in satisfying students' needs and providing them with opportunities to develop and direct their tendencies and abilities through curricula, active participation, educational, free, sports, cultural, and social activities. This guides the student towards self-expression, honing talents and skills, developing and directing them positively.

Upbringing has two fundamental roles in strengthening the relationship of youth with their surrounding environment: it helps the individual adapt to the environment and understand its problems and needs, and on the other hand, it helps them deal with the environment and adapt it for their benefit and that of society as a whole, protecting and preserving it, investing its experiences and resources, creating environmental balance, bearing individual responsibility towards the environment, and awareness of its ability to renew itself. Upbringing and its tool, the curriculum, especially play a role in acquainting the individual with the external surroundings, whether the natural environment related to mineral and natural resources or the social environment, meaning society with its cultures, customs, organizations, institutions, philosophies, systems, and others. This is achieved only through the contents of education and upbringing included in educational and pedagogical curricula.

The goals of modern education place the learner in educational situations with multiple elements where the learner is one of these elements and present problems requiring solutions. It invites them to think and reach solutions through thinking, experimentation, and trial to acquire diverse experiences that enable them to reshape the conditions they live in, making the learner active and interactive rather than just a passive recipient.

John Dewey affirms that "the correct education means that school achievement which students pursue on their own to acquire skill in thinking and overcome future life problems." Thus, education in the modern sense is not rote learning and cramming learners' minds with concepts and knowledge but giving learners information and skills and allowing them to understand, apply, and solve their problems without the teacher’s help except in guidance. Here, education is integrated with upbringing by habituating learners to face scientific and life problems and solve them according to their abilities and available possibilities. This achieves a fundamental aspect of sound upbringing: developing learner independence and autonomy while also nurturing cooperation through group projects.

The ability of upbringing to influence the course of society depends on economic and political inputs and the quality and adequacy of curricula, programs, and teaching methods. The better the quality, the greater the positive or negative impact.

• • The Share of Upbringing in Algerian Curricula:

• 1-    Promoting academic subjects contributing to personality                                              building:

It has become widely known among students that the cultural elements forming the lifestyle pattern in our society are divided into three main categories: general culture, specific culture, and cultural variables. It is also known that the general elements represent the components of individual and social personality and are fixed and unchanging. As an embodiment of the national dimension, which is the fundamental reference for educational goals, emphasizing Arabism, Islam, history, civic, and national education, a large group of education specialists, researchers, and subject specialists gathered in a national seminar and worked on finding ways to embody this reference dimension, thereby embodying the components of the Algerian personality by promoting related subjects: Arabic, Amazigh, Islamic education, history, and civic education. One result of this seminar was the urgent activation of measures such as raising the Arabic language coefficient in the middle school certificate exam from four to five, increasing the weekly teaching hours for Arabic—the largest among all subjects—ranging from 14 hours weekly in first and second grades of primary to 12 hours in the third grade, then 9 hours in the fourth and fifth grades. The seminar also emphasized strengthening Islamic education from the first grade of primary to the fourth year of middle school, aiming to consolidate principles matching human values promoted by Islam like tolerance, generosity, brotherhood, altruism, solidarity, and peace instead of jihad, focusing on introducing students to religious rituals, adherence to them, providing a positive image of Islam and Muslims worldwide, and contributing to spreading Islam through role models and correct behaviors and high ethics.

• 2-    Enhancing citizenship education:

This education is among the major concerns of global educational systems, especially in globalization’s context, where principles of democracy, citizenship, human rights, and personal and public freedoms are common concepts among all peoples and races and imposed by the new world order due to openness to international markets, economic globalization, and media and communication technologies. Citizenship education aims to achieve the following:

• •    Developing student awareness of their rights and duties.

• •    Training them to respect the law and adhere to social life rules.

• •    Fostering a sense of belonging to the homeland and its symbols.

• •    Highlighting the values of solidarity, tolerance, and coexistence regardless of race or religion.

• •    Appreciating and preserving the services provided by institutions and agencies.

• 3-    Integrating the fundamental dimension of environmental education:

Within the global trend toward the environment and its preservation after feeling the danger threatening the earth, it has become necessary to raise students' awareness of the urgent need for sustainable education benefiting future generations. UNESCO declared in 1977 that environmental education provides the knowledge, values, and scientific competencies necessary to contribute responsibly and effectively to solving environmental problems and improving environmental quality. Introducing environmental education into the curriculum aligns with the agreement signed on April 2, 2009, between the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Regional Planning and Environment, aiming to provide students with environmental culture and necessary competencies to preserve environmental safety throughout their schooling. In the 2002/2003 school year, 135 model institutions were designated, and educational materials including teacher guides, pedagogical kits, and student notebooks were prepared. The pedagogical kit requires establishing a Green Club at schools, where students engage in activities supporting a healthy environment. Between 2006 and 2008, gradual generalization of environmental education within Algerian curricula began with the 2005/2006 school year launch, and a joint ministerial decree between the Ministries of Education and Environment was signed on May 17, 2005. Starting from the 2008/2009 school year, the second phase of the strategy was marked by expanding and generalizing environmental education across all primary, middle, and secondary education institutions.

• 4-    Early introduction of foreign languages teaching:

Language education is considered essential in building and developing individual personality. Believing in this importance, the Algerian educational system included early teaching of foreign languages, French and English, in its curricula to achieve the following goals:

• •    Educating generations to express thoughts and feelings well in foreign languages with ease and proficiency.

• •    Enabling students to understand world cultures and benefit from them in science, education, and civilization.

• •    Helping students understand cultural and intellectual differences between their own culture and world cultures to reinforce belonging to their origins and society.

• •    Enabling students to open up to other cultures and contribute to intercultural dialogue.

• •    Facilitating access to sources of knowledge and scientific and technical documentation available in these languages.

• •    Providing students who wish to pursue higher education in these languages with a strong linguistic foundation.

• 5-    Scientific and technical education:

The scientific dimension is one of the most important principles on which the Algerian educational system is based, by making education scientific in its programs, believing that science is the sure path to development. Since the 2006-2007 school year, the Ministry of Education has worked to provide necessary conditions to generalize the scientific-technical branch, offering better training for supervisors and better care for students directed to this branch, especially better coordination with higher education. The Ministry has gradually prepared secondary education institutions to open all technical branches (electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, and technical engineering). Indeed, the percentage of students enrolled in the scientific-technical branch in the second year of secondary school rose from 10.11% of total students in that year in 2006/2007 to 13.65% in 2008/2009. One important aspect of keeping pace with scientific and technological development in new curricula is introducing the subject of computer science from the middle school stage, enabling learners to master scientific skills and facts and use computers pedagogically inside and outside the classroom. Scientific education aims to:

• •    Keep the educational system abreast of the rapid development in the global scientific and technological arena and integrate new developments pedagogically.

• •    Raise awareness by providing learners with a basic scientific culture contributing effectively alongside other educational subjects to developing awareness and building objective attitudes.