1. The model of the system of content regulation

1.1. Levels and functions of the content regulation system

In order to create the opportunity of thinking in an analytic way about content regulation disregarding the specific steps of educational policy-making, it seems to be essential to list the levels and ideal functions of the regulation system (Table 1). It is important to note that the content regulation system of a certain state does not always institutionalise every single element of this model, some levels and functions are missing or overlapping. However, this has serious consequences, which have to be acknowledged by educational policymakers. It is useful to put forward the notion that the model described here is an instrument supporting analysis and – even if the linear character of the model suggested it – it does not serve as an “instruction manual” orientating content regulation.

Below we list the levels and functions of content regulation, then, in the course of the analysis we will look at the professional operation and connection of levels and functions. After defining each level and function we are going to formulate basic questions that will partly help interpretation and will also provide a background for further analysis. Assumptions connected to development are only formulated in this section if the interpretation of the logic of certain level makes it inevitable. (All other recommendations will be found in the next chapters.) The basis of the model is the assumption that content regulation (as a relatively divided system of instruments within educational system regulation) does not only serve as the target of implementing central initiatives for reaching educational goals, but it also has to ensure the education system’s openness and ability to improve.

  Figure 1 • Model of the system of content regulation

1.1.1. Target setting

This activity of strategic importance, undoubtedly belong to the central level of content regulation. The social partners involved in completing this task reach a consensus about the ideal requirements of students’ knowledge and skill development that will have to be represented in the instruments (curriculum, exam requirements, assessment system etc.) of content regulation, in content development (programs) and in content carriers (textbooks and additional materials). It is obvious that the setting of educational goals and teaching objectives is a task, in the completion of which – besides educational administration and scientist of education – employers, representatives of higher education, local municipalities maintaining institutions and the representatives of scientific research should be involved. Reaching a consensus can be broadly interpreted (the main characteristics and inner proportion of valid and required contents) and can be narrowly interpreted (the directions of modifying existing contents reflecting global processes). In case it seems to be impossible to reach a broad consensus, it can be completely narrowed down (e.g. different emphasis on content regulation or the development of natural sciences’ contents). By all means, all the decisions have to be made on this level, which orientate the central and local institutional decisions about the division of the available time between spheres of knowledge or school subjects.

The completion of this task of strategic importance has often – especially in English speaking countries – created a separate institutional background. The mission of the curriculum councils (e.g. the Scottish Curriculum Council) is to set targets and to maintain democratic legitimisation. The lack of social control can always create an undesirable situation where the strategic plans connected to content regulation reflect the ideas of one or two groups of people. The diversification of the content regulation of public education can also be put down to the lack of social control. Supranational educational targets generated by global challenges and formed within the framework of international cooperation are playing an increasing role in target setting. This is especially true in the European Union’s member countries, where the targets worked out by the EU and the active participation in setting targets has a great effect on national targets.

In conclusion it can be stated that during the period of target setting it seems to be necessary to clearly distinguish the definition of strategic targets and requirements connected to public educational contents from the development of instruments (curriculum) and content (programs). In addition, the legitimate completion of strategic plans connected to content regulation – resulting in the involvement of social partners – seems to be essential.

1.1.2. Definition and operation of content regulation instruments

It would be desirable that the elements that can be fixed in regulations (the number of content elements, its inner proportion, suggested lesson numbers) should be kept under social control even during the period of target setting. Thus, the definition and operation of content regulation could focus on working out professional regulation instruments. These regulation instruments are the following:

• the basic and framework curriculum
• central exam requirements
• the curricular directions regulating special professional
• the assessment of learner achievement (assessment system)
• choice of programs
• the National Training Register
• the professional curriculum used in vocational training.

The process of transforming central regulatory instruments into branches of knowledge (school subjects) by developers seems to be a critical point of this regulatory level. This transformation is not professionally practiced; the people who define central requirements and the experts of branches of knowledge (subjects) form significantly different socio-cultural groups and they communicate in different ways.

Another serious problem is caused by the strong diversification of the profession experienced during working out professional regulatory instruments. Last but not least, as a result of the underdevelopment of the Hungarian assessment system, there’s a lack of suitability verification and ongoing development of initiated professional regulatory instruments.

Considering the experiences of different countries, it can be stated that it is essential to establish and operate a stabilized professional background dealing with the professional regulatory instruments of content regulation. Considering stabilized professional background, we can regard the way leading from traditional curriculum development centres to centres focusing on the systematic self-reflection of content regulation (e.g. the Dutch CITO provides a classic example of this development).

Considering professional development within the unified approach of lifelong learning instead of the development and setting of educational regulatory instruments is an approach of great significance.

1.1.3. Outlining and accepting local/institutional programs

During the Hungarian content regulation reforms none of those regulations were realised, which would have regarded institutional level as an independent element of adapting contents, therefore, this factor is of great significance in Hungary. In the course of describing this function and regulatory level, presumably this is the most stabilized element of the Hungarian regulatory ideas and practices. Within our model of the content regulation, this level creates the greatest challenge for the traditional top-down regulatory logic.

In the case of this level, the pedagogical element of adaptation logic is broken by an increasing number of interests, which begin to doubt the realization of original regulatory intentions on an institutional level. Institutional adaptation is complicated by the specific decision-making of teaching staffs and by the factors of employment, in many cases without the know-how of content management and without the control of local “users” of the school. It is clear enough that institutional adaptation, which is strongly influenced by the reality of interests (not belonging to pedagogy), turns all those intentions into an illusion that consider bringing down the “valuable” educational contents from the centre to the classrooms. It can be assumed that the transmission and assessment of unified standards and the harmonised application of self-evaluation and the assessment coming from outside can create a sensible connection between goal setting periods and the periods of the development of regulatory instruments and between the institutional educational practices.

1.1.4. Development and acquisition of content carriers by institutions

This level is one of the key elements of content regulation, which is regarded by institutions and teachers as the most significant and practical factor of content regulation. Textbooks and other teaching materials and educational tools traditionally determine the educational work organized into lessons. In the near future, teaching materials created in an electronic format can be added to these. (This is why it is necessary to use the expression of “content carriers”.)

Central modernization concepts have not been to interpret this level so far. The development and selling of content carriers – however professional it was – is a profit-orientated development and trading activity. As a result of its inner rationality being different from traditional educational values, it is of key importance to integrate the textbook publisher and teaching material producer companies determining this level into the system of content regulation.

Today the level of integration is low. The National Public Education Assessment and Examination Centre (the National Public Education Assessment and Examination Centre) and the National Public Education Council (the National Public Education Council) operate a textbook accreditation process; but this is mainly concentrating on the professional development of content regulation and textbook publishing, however, it prescribes that textbooks should be compatible with central curricula. Other regulations do not approach textbook publishing from the aspect of content regulation either. Textbook publishers themselves have used the possibility of professional integration when they started to work out programs and curricula that were adjusted to national content regulation and created a good basis for the development and trading of profitable textbook groups. The low level of integration is clearly shown by the fact that we do not know much about the development work and quality management system of textbook publishers.

The fact that in the course of the reforms of content regulation in Hungary all models relied on the active and professional adaptation work of institutions resulted that the selection of content carriers (traditionally textbooks) happened after the acceptance of institutional programs. In its present form selection operates as a non-organic step following the acceptance of institutional programs, which – ideally – is operated on team (team of teachers teaching the same subjects) level by the institutions of public education. It is expected that the role of those electronic and printed content carriers, which support teachers in the creation of tools helping teaching and learning, will increase and they will partially take the role of textbooks.

1.1.5. The application of content carriers in the teaching and learning process

Pedagogical processes on classroom level operate as “black boxes” for all system level approaches. Since there is only a few research data available about the problems of textbook selection and the management of learning connected to it, it seems to be practical to consider the awareness of the application of content carriers during classroom work. The analysis of this level – just like that of level 3 and 4 – makes the analyst careful about transmitting modern educational contents from the centre to classrooms.

One of the most widely used instruments within educational policies in this aspect is teachers’ empowerment for individual classroom management, and the identification of teachers competencies and professional development, is. In several countries the training instruments are overestimated at such extent that in practice they almost undertook the role of traditional content regulation.

We can conclude that the more reflected and regulated the staff’s selection and usage of textbooks, the stronger connection between central innovation and local practices can be established. Presumably the regulations of classroom management and textbook application, the institutional quality management requirements and the supporting professional development courses can – in the medium term – improve the efficiency of communication between the central and institutional level of content regulation.
The professional operation of this level of content regulation can be primarily reached by the development of teachers’ classroom managerial skills and the development of their pedagogical and methodological tools.

1.1.6. Suitability verification

According to the traditional approach, this level does not belong to content regulation. The more reflective approaches do not regard content regulation as a process directed from the top, but they see it as a complicated chain of interpretations. Broadly interpreted, suitability verification can be identified with the national assessment system, but it can have an interpretation considering a narrowed, targeted assessment.

The assessment and exam system can undertake the role of suitability verification, if unified requirements (standards) take the place of the definition of content elements in the course of regulation. Otherwise, the results of the PISA survey can be repeated, when new and well-defined requirements were adjusted to fragmented and “mixed” educational contents.

It is essential that the social publicity (and the benchmarking and development pressure generated by the public) of assessment and exam results should primarily put dynamism into the sphere of content regulation instead of the modernisation of central content elements. The frameworks of this publicity can be connected to the period of goal setting.

1.2. Connecting systems

The operation of the system of content regulation is enabled by the operation of three functions. System regulation appoints the framework of content regulation, supervision and assessment are supposed to maintain the principle of accountability and professional services provide the professional capacity for operating the system.

1.2.1. System regulation

The shaping of the system of content regulation is influenced by several organisations. Besides the Ministry of Education, the National Public Education Council (the National Public Education Council), the Public Education Policy Council (KT) and the interest reconciliation boards participate in forming the system.

Legal regulation is the most commonly used instrument of content regulation which defines specific contents on one hand, but on the other hand sometimes it follows a procedural regulation and it defines those frameworks within which the participants of education can autonomously set or interpret educational goals. The application of other regulatory instruments in Hungary is very rare; we can hardly name any examples. The connected legal documentation is also fragmented; it does not always comply with the ongoing important processes.

It is important to mention the intentional application of given financial resources in the field of content regulation. On one hand, legal regulations contain such financial regulators (lesson numbers, group sizes), which have a direct effect on the teaching work on the institutions of public education; besides, there are motivators (in Hungary one of these motivators is the specific financial resources supporting the integration of Roma students or the so-called integration norm, currently under preparation) that may have very strong content regulatory effects. Within indirect instruments student achievement assessment has a great potential, which can strengthen the “messages” transmitted by other instruments.

Another approach to system regulation follows a bottom-up logic, which applies instruments that inspire, or even force cooperation between educational institutions’ in order to help horizontal learning. These include the direct and indirect instruments that serve the systematic scaling-up of contents and innovations produced on an institutional level.

1.2.2. Supervision/accountability

The professional, legal and financial supervision of processes on different levels of content regulation cannot be seen maintained in the Hungarian education system. The occasional governmental supervision (National Audit Office) is complemented by the maintainer’s supervision. Within the Hungarian public administration system the legal supervision of local municipalities is maintained by public administrative offices. Today the role of the National Public Education Assessment and Examination Centre in this field is an open-ended question. The deficiencies shown are even more surprising, since in Europe there are well-operating systems for carrying out supervision and for the maintenance of accountability. Both the French state supervision and the English OFSTED, system of listed experts, proved to be operable.

A system responsible for the maintenance of accountability has three hierarchic, strongly interdependent elements, namely those three elements are: institutional self-evaluation, external (maintainer’s or education supervision’s) evaluation and departmental supervision. The modification of the Public Education Act in 2003 regulates institutional evaluation as obligatory for all institutions of public education and the external evaluation is expected (most probably) to be built in the quality assurance programs of local municipalities. A unified departmental evaluation system compatible with the decentralized Hungarian education system could be created only if an agency was formed that would sum up the results of institutional and the maintainer’s external evaluation and it would create external efficiency benchmarks for the local participants of education. Ideally, this three-level evaluation system would integrate the assessment system of student achievement. Another instrument of accountability – which is hardly used in Hungary – is a greater publicity.

1.2.3. Professional services

Professional services are very differentiated on the different levels of content regulation in Hungary. National institutions and organizations provide services mainly for educational administration, while regional professional suppliers provide services to local municipalities and to the institutions of public education. In the case of market orientated suppliers there is no such diversification. Behind each institution there is an informal group of suppliers including experts of content development, who are integrated in fulfilling the most diverse periodic tasks.

In Central East Europe – and in Hungary as well – professional services are characteristically organized with the target and logic of implementation. In this region there are only very rare examples of support systems formed with respect to stabilized, long-term development and assessment. The “reorganisation” waves targeting implementation mainly obstruct the formation and running of support capacity that is independent from reforms and strongly dependant on the assessment system. Among the support systems connected to content regulation the ones providing information and know-how in order to help development, planning, adaptation and innovation play a significant role. A weak know-how necessarily breaks and weakens the target setting and interpretation process outlined above. The operation of networks supported by modern information and communication technologies is playing an increasing role in satisfying the need for knowledge and information. The information system of education (educational statistics and administrative systems) and all the mechanisms and agencies providing information are worth mentioning.

As we stated earlier, the professional services offered to different participants of the system (local/regional administration, school management, teachers) are very important. This support system has two basic types: courses determined by supply, which is based on the network of institutions maintained and operated by the state, and courses determined by demand, which are characterised by the liberalised and sector-neutral professional development market, the quality assurance system operated by the state (accreditation of programs and trainers) and the financial support of people using professional services. (In Hungary the latter was employed.)
Another indirect instrument used in most developed countries is the support of development programs on institutional level and making the developer agencies and non-profit organisations take the duties produced by strategic goals.