I.

PILLARS OF NICARAGUAN EDUCATION

Nicaraguan Education is supported by new pillars, which are materialized

in Basic and Secondary Education, which seeks new ways to learn and
teach that contribute to children, girls, young people, adolescents, and adults:

Learn to Be: This pillar strengthens the development of the human being with values.
social, environmental, ethical, civic, humanistic and cultural, that allows them to
building their identity, the formation of character and the strengthening of their autonomy,
as well as the development of their life project, for the benefit of the community, to
live a healthy and fulfilling life.

Learn to Know: Articulating a sufficiently broad general knowledge that

allow the student to develop basic and necessary learning for their education
integral, designing a Curriculum that considers an appropriate balance between the
scientific, humanistic, technical, labor, artistic, and recreational knowledge. The
learning to know has an intimate relationship with the development of knowledge and the
necessary capabilities for its assimilation, the possibilities of the Technologies of
the Information and Communication and the techniques and skills necessary to process,
discriminate and use the information that helps to broaden knowledge, for
enrich and update the content provided by the school, that responds to the
phenomena characteristic of globalization, interculturality and the use that must be made
from science to serve sustainable human development.

Learn to Do: Acquiring broad competencies that enable the student

to appropriate the methods and procedures that can be used from
knowledge, to act on information, on themselves and on
various situations, developing the ability to act reflectively, with
initiative, creativity, being original, innovative; all of this in relation to their
natural and social environment, in a cooperative working environment, with attitude
entrepreneur, to act on her own practice, so that she can make
decisions with creative autonomy, to learn to give new and original ones
solutions to the different problems one may face.

Learn to Coexist: Shaping a new citizenship committed to the

development of the country, of its community, of its integration into the Central American region,
Latin America and its balanced position globally. It focuses on development.
and practice of the values of transparency, tolerance, respect for rights
humans, to a Culture of Peace that educates on duties and rights, the respect for the
Political Constitution and its Laws. Learning to live together requires that the school
provides students with multiple opportunities to practice values and
attitudes that contribute to peaceful coexistence in different areas
that unfolds, in search of unity and the common good, the will of
service, the mission of dedicating oneself to bring good to others. The school must
provide spaces for the student to be heard and learn to
listen; as well as learning to ask, understand and value diversity and
Understanding that respect for others is a fundamental value for all coexistence.

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OBJECTIVES OF THE BASIC NATIONAL CURRICULUM

General

Create the conditions to transform educational practices in order to improve the

learning opportunities for all students, with a focused education
towards life, work, and coexistence, with an Educational Subsystem that responds
to the demands of the country's development and the current times, developing a
Curriculum that fully trains the student in the physical, emotional, and
cognitive, to exercise responsible citizenship and to be able to develop in
appropriate and effective way in the different areas in which it operates.

Specific

Develop in students an understanding of the world and of science, and generate

with this knowledge useful learnings for your life.

To form individuals with Basic and Historical Values and Principles that lead to
develop a conscious, active, and proactive behavior in the construction and
personal and social transformation.

Prepare students to successfully integrate into the social and cultural world.
labor

To train citizens who practice and promote peaceful coexistence with their
similar and in harmony with nature.

Encouraging lifelong learning through research and the use of methods and
appropriate technologies.

BASIC NATIONAL CURRICULUM

A.- Curriculum Construction

The Ministry of Education has proposed a total and profound change to the current one.
Curriculum of Basic and Secondary Education, due to a series of factors that are
impacting the low quality of Education, among others:

Low results in the Academic Performance of students, society

Nicaraguan society has been transforming and has new demands for the
education, predominance of a traditional methodology and evaluation, Curriculum not
relevant, university-oriented, decontextualized, disconnected from
the productive and the labor, an accelerated development of Technology, Communication and
the Sciences, which generates a wealth of knowledge in all fields, to the
which students would not have access through the traditional way of
teaching, likewise low results in the different academic competitions,
selection of the best students and in the tests applied for admission to the
Higher Education. All of the above reflects serious problems in the process.

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teaching learning. In this sense, the MINED has designed a series of
short, medium, and long-term strategies to improve educational processes, by
what is required from the participation of everyone to fulfill the commitment
to raise the quality of education.

Short-term strategies of MINED to improve Educational Quality

Studies on Academic Performance in Primary and Secondary Education

Normal Schools.

Battle for the First Grade of Primary and the Fifth Year of Secondary.

Evaluation Strategy through Oral and Public Exams for Students

who will graduate in 2010.

Medium and long-term strategies for improving quality

Educational

New Curriculum for Basic and Secondary Education.

National System of Training and Education for the National Teaching Profession.
The TEPCEs and the Educational Networks of the Global and Integral Organization Model
School and Curriculum Management for the Improvement of Basic Education Quality
and Media in Nicaragua.

Alongside these strategies, the National Performance Assessments stand out.

Academic performance of 3rd and 6th grade students 2002-2006; as well as the Evaluation
International on the learning experiences of students from Latin America and the Caribbean
(HEART) and the associated factors regarding these results.

Starting in January 2008, a process is being experienced that seeks to provide to the
schools, to students and teachers of more and better tools to overcome
the established schemes in recent years. This is how the new proposal is born
curriculum that aims to impact the entire nation with a curriculum adjusted to the
reality, and the educational development demands that urgently need to be implemented in the country.

In this way, the changes in what to teach and what to learn are based on the
National Consultative Survey on the Curriculum of Basic and Secondary Education
the principles, purposes, and values that we as a national community have in perspective and
of what we can capture through a truly national adaptation.

More than 17,000 people were consulted, a unique fact in history of the
education of the country and of Latin America. 141 workshops were held in the process of
Curriculum Consultation, 11 Curriculum Councils with the participation of 600
inhabitants of the different neighborhoods, as well as merchants from the different
markets of Managua, 7,000 teachers participating in the consultation, from the different
educational levels and modalities; as well as state and private centers
subsidized, 600 center directors, 3,300 visits to the Educational Portal and 170

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contributions; as well as 134 centers that participated in the pilot of the Curriculum at the level of
classroom.

The construction of this new curriculum will have sustainability and continuity in the
time, to the extent that it is considered as one's own by all
educational community. Only in this way will it be guaranteed that its implementation is
effective in the classrooms and that students improve their results in
learning in the different disciplines of the Study Plan.
In this context, the MINED opened new spaces for reflection and participation for everyone.
the Nicaraguan society, which the New Curriculum incorporates the recommendations
and contributions from the general public.

It is important to highlight that the participation of the teachers has been extensive throughout the process.
that has been followed to build the National Curriculum of Basic Education and
Media, for they are considered historical authors who have collaborated with
contributions that reflect their experience and constitute an irreplaceable element in the
curriculum transformation process promoted by the new authorities
educational.

We consider that the participation of teachers will contribute to legitimizing and

strengthen the permanence of change over time, as they are participants
in this Participatory Revolution of Nicaraguan Education, where I move on to
we have been building the Curriculum of Basic and Secondary Education, defining
what to teach and learn in our country.

General Principles of the Curriculum

The National Curriculum is based on the following general principles:

Quality:

Quality is a broad concept, which has an intimate relationship with a series of

endogenous and exogenous factors. To do this, we refer to the definition of quality that
gives us the General Education Law.

Quality of Education

Quality is understood as the cross-cutting criterion of Nicaraguan education, which

challenges the educational processes in relation to academic results and with the
relevance of learning for the lives of learners. It encompasses the conception,
design of study plans and programs and learning strategies that form
important part of the Curriculum; as well as the performance or achievement of the
students, of the educational system itself as such and of education in its relationship
with the human talent required for the development of the nation. The quality of the
education aims at the construction and development of relevant learning, that
enable students to successfully face the challenges of life and that
each one becomes a positive actor-subject for the community and the country.
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Equity: It means that the Educational System ensures equal conditions in the
learning processes, in order to guarantee access, permanence, and promotion of
everyone in the corresponding educational levels and modalities.

Relevance and meaning: An important and meaningful education for life, which
satisfy the needs, interests, and expectations of the student, taking into account the
conditions of the country and seeking to overcome them, through a new
diversified curriculum that involves linking theory with practice, to the
overcoming poverty and exercising democratic and community engagement.

Relevance: It means that education, its conception, design, plans, and programs
of study, as well as the results of the teaching-learning process, be
coherent with the natural, social, and cultural context, and useful for life in a
person in their multiple roles in a society and in specific periods.

Efficiency and Effectiveness: In its dual dimension, it means in human terms and
economic, the fact that knowledge, skills, abilities, and values
acquired in the educational process during a specific period, that serve to
the proper development of the student's abilities, as well as their contribution to
development of the country.

Flexibility: It adapts to the characteristics and the level of maturity of the

students, as well as to their sociocultural needs and the conditions
concrete in which the educational process develops, allows the Curriculum to
could contextualize and make the curricular adjustments according to the
student needs, problems, and interests.

Quality of Education is also understood as the achievement of learning.

socially useful for personal, work, and social life, the development of values
ethical, civic, and social, of a critical and reflective thought; as well as the ability
to learn to learn in order to transform oneself and committed to
harmonic transformation of its environment.

Among the internal and external factors of quality, the following are identified:
student, the Teacher, the Curriculum, the Learning Environment, the Resources and
Participatory Management.

2. Integrity, Interdisciplinarity, and Holistic

It is important to visualize the curriculum by interrelating the learnings and the factors.
that influence its development, so that this principle can develop in different
areas at the curricular and pedagogical practice level.

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Gradualism: It guides the development of educational processes so that
students achieve learning gradually and systematically,
correspondence to your psychopedagogical level.

Continuity and Articulation: Ensures the continuity of learning and articulates the
Educational subsystems, establishing the means and mechanisms that allow for the
mobility of students between the different levels and modalities of the system
national educational, as well as those promoted by organizations and institutions of the
civil society.

Diversity: It incorporates the diversity of needs, interests, problems and

potentialities of students, family and community, as a source for the
development of the curriculum and for the design of socially relevant learning situations
useful in terms of an education for life. It also integrates the attention to the
people with special educational needs with and without disabilities. Respect for
Diversity underpins social coexistence, democracy, and equity in all.
its dimensions (social, economic, political, cultural, environmental, generational and
territorial.

3. Protagonism:

Students and teachers must be responsible and co-participants in the process.

teaching - learning, this is enriched through social interaction among the
students and between students and teachers.

The Student: He is the architect of his own learning based on his experiences.
previous and the critical appropriation of accumulated universal knowledge, in interaction
permanent with their teachers, classmates, and their environment.

The Teacher: The teacher is characterized as a pedagogical mediator.

learning, recognizing that they play a relevant role in the process
teacher - educational, where the teacher acts as an agent of change in the
classroom, the school and the community.

4. Interaction, Participation, and Decentralization:

Fundamental principles where all levels of the institution interact, thus

as the social actors benefiting from the teaching-learning process. It is a
participatory process of all citizens being an integral part of the
contextualization of the Curriculum at the local level.

Interaction: Promotes within the educational community, the interrelation between

actors, resources, and processes of the curriculum, enabling organized action and
creator in educational activities.

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Participation: Specify the concept of an expanded, strengthened educational community.
by the local community, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, entities
self-employed, private companies and other social agents.

Decentralization: Introduce the model of national educational management

strategic, contextualized curricular planning, with more flexible frameworks, that
they assume the development, through the education of local capacities, for
identify specific problems, design viable solutions, implement them and evaluate
their results.

5. Science, Technology, Work and Quality of Life

It is necessary to promote a scientific culture among teachers and students.

technological, labor, and entrepreneurial, developing critical awareness, the promotion of
research and experimentation, curiosity, creativity, and innovation.

Educational institutions must be focused on innovation and progress.

Science and Technology, in such a way that they provide effective responses to development.
socioeconomic and productive, as well as to sustainable human development to enhance the
quality of life.

The Curriculum prioritizes training for, by, and for creative work in all its
levels and manifestations, as elements of humanization and dignification, as
source of knowledge and as a generator of socially useful values.

Emphasizes scientific, innovative, technological, creative, productive, and

investigative, in the different branches of knowledge.

Conceives and supports a scientific, technological, and productive development at the service of the being
human and society, based on the basic principles of equity, sustainability,
productivity and participation.

6. Social Commitment:

Education is a commitment of all Nicaraguans.

sustains in the participation of the individual, the family, the community, which are constituted
in fundamental support of educational action.

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It promotes the improvement of the quality of life of its beneficiaries through
learnings, from the practice of values and the development of skills and abilities.

Develop a general system of individual and socially useful values for each
person as an individual, for basic social groups, such as the family, the
community and the country.

It contributes to the comprehensive development of the student's personality, from the

psychosocial perspective, projecting it as a responsible actor in the construction
of the common good and in social transformation, towards development with equity.

7. Multiculturalism and Bilingualism:

It is important to incorporate cultural, historical, and socioeconomic elements.

own of the Autonomous Regions and their indigenous and ethnic communities of the
Nicaraguan Caribbean Coast.

An appropriate theoretical-practical balance and adequate linkage is required with

the cultures and productive experiences of the multiethnic communities of the Coast
Caribbean.

It constitutes a respectful conception of harmonious coexistence and enrichment.

mutual exchange between different cultures; promotes their knowledge, understanding and technology,
as factors of social, economic, political, and cultural progress of the nation.

D. Approach of the New Curriculum of Basic and Secondary Education, Centered on the

Human Person

1.- What is the Curriculum?

The Curricular Transformation conceives the Curriculum as all the experiences of

learning that the student develops in interaction with their natural environment
and social, those that make possible the development of expected and intrinsic competencies
each student. It is also conceptualized as the Plans, Study Programs,
Didactic Complexes and technical-methodological support documents that the
Ministry of Education hands over to the Schools for their administration, management and
development. The curriculum is a micro system of the Basic Education Subsystem and
Media, around which other components act to support its development.

2.- Characteristics of the Curriculum

With the aim of providing quality education, the Education Curriculum

Basic and Secondary is designed under the following characteristics:

It strengthens the national identity and the sense of belonging of the students.

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Organize the skills and learning contents into areas and disciplines.

It is based on learning theories where its focus is centered on the

subject that learns, starting from the premise that students bring intelligences to the classroom
multiple, while prior knowledge and learning strategies that they
will help solve problems in unprecedented situations.

It emphasizes the relationship between theory and practice and vice versa, the relationship of the
Competencies with the acquisition of critical thinking skills, habits
productive mindsets, operational skills and abilities.

It focuses on the human being, in relation to its sociocultural and historical context.

Conceive education as a fundamental human right, an education for the

economic and social development, with the highest ethical and human values, that
They promote a critical, social, and environmental awareness.

It is a Curriculum built from Nicaraguan identity, taking our reference into account.
educational wealth and experiences already developed in the country.

The curriculum integrates the different types of knowledge: conceptual, procedural,

attitudinal.

The Study Programs are organized into Programmatic Units, which facilitate the
Programming and Evaluation in TEPCEs.

Flexibility is promoted, as it guides the adaptation of the same in the

territorial contexts in which it develops.

It emphasizes the integrality and integration of different areas, disciplines.

curricular, allowing the transversality of those who help to shape
integrally to the student, such as gender relations, citizenship, sexuality,
values, others.

It is promoted as a psychopedagogical approach, the construction of knowledge by the

own student, with methodologies that facilitate learning to learn, to think,
to reflect, to investigate their own reality, to make decisions, to do and above all
to be a better person, a better citizen.

Historical memory is rescued for the strengthening of national identity.

The Polytechnical Approach is integrated as a Transversal and Vertical Axis.

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3.- Approach of the New Curriculum

The new Curriculum is framed within a person-centered approach as an entity.

promoter of personal development, of social development, of the characteristics
cultural and participatory processes that promote harmonious coexistence.
It emphasizes the appreciation of national identity, culture, interculturality, and in
the organizational structures for social participation in centers and areas
educational, so that the interactions between the subjects not only
they constitute an exercise in participatory democracy, but strengthen the
interculturality.

It is an approach that sees the person as a social being, who transforms and values themselves.
when one projects and participates in the construction of the well-being of others
education is oriented towards the comprehensive training of it and the development of its
social responsibilities, respecting individual differences and addressing the
special educational needs. Part of the criterion that the training of the
human persona is built in interaction with one's peers, during the
social exchange and cultural development.

All of the above leads to a conception of learning as a process of

elaboration, in the sense that the student selects, organizes, and transforms the
information received, establishing relationships between that information and its ideas
or prior knowledge.

In this sense, learning should be conceived as a socializing process.

that the social actors involved in the educational process build
validated knowledge through practice in problem-solving, based on their
experiences, dialogue, critical reflections and through interaction with the
others, developed in relation to the social and cultural context.

Allow the school to transform into centers that promote in a way

reflective and coherent, the integral human development of students; it must
to be characterized by strengthening the human being and their possibilities; by training women and
committed men, critical, reflective, creative, innovative, researchers,
efficient, affective, and effective, preparing them in the love of study, work, and
productivity, that is, makers of their own destiny and of the community in which they live.

A resume organized by competencies

A human-centered curriculum, organized by competencies, in areas and

disciplines for the development of learning lead to considering the type of society
and of the human being that is desired to be formed, to reflect and reorient many of the
teaching practices and to investigate and determine, according to the needs of the
sociocultural context and the interests of the students.

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Guiding education towards the development of competencies becomes a
strategy to train individuals capable of exercising their duties and rights, thus
to participate in a labor world that increasingly requires broad
knowledge.

4. Reflection Framework

The term 'competence' has been the subject of attention for about fifteen years.
special, both in conceptual debates and particularly in the experiences that
numerous countries, with great interest in this new curricular approach, have invested in
practice.

The obsolescence of the curriculum and even of the educational systems themselves in the face of
new contemporary reality, added to the contributions and discoveries of the
theories of cognitive development and, of course, the consequent new
proposals that arise from pedagogy, constitute an important input for
identify and provide support for the principles of new guiding approaches of
development of educational processes in students, closely
interconnected with a dynamic and changing environment given by technologies of the
information and communication.

5. Some Reflections on the Origins of Competencies in

Education

Applying the competency approach means considering the human person as the
social subject who as such has the capabilities to carry out multiple processes
whose demands are particular, depending on the cognitive implications,
communicative, motivational, volitional, and contextual, associated with each process.

It is necessary to clarify, then, that it is not about standardizing the person.

human, whether in content or in objectives; on the contrary, this approach respects and
promotes personal differences or multiple intelligences as desired
to be named, since it is about discovering, enhancing and developing the different types of
capabilities that every human being has. Educational competencies are not
product of chance, neither are they random nor of instant acquisition. They are, at
opposite, result of a process.

He is Noam Abraham Chomsky, a Hebrew of Russian origin, philosopher and linguist, professor.
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1961, who, starting from his
concerns about language acquisition in children and their corresponding
current paradigms, based on the advancements of the research of the
Clinical Psychology, dating back to 1950, which in 1965 was the first to propose a
valid interpretation regarding educational competencies, defining them as the
capacity and willingness for performance and interpretation.

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The inaugural notion of competencies arises from Noam Chomsky's fascination with
the process of appropriation that the child makes of the language system and refers to that
extraordinary and mysterious ability of how it internalizes the world through a
established language, this ability is called linguistic competence.
Thus, we establish a fundamental distinction between competence (the
knowledge that the speaker and listener have of their language) and performance (the practical use
what they do with language in specific situations)... In fact, the second one could not
directly reflect the competition. A recording of the natural spoken speech allows us
it will show numerous failed starts, deviations from the formal rules, changes
in the orientation of the speech halfway, etc." (Chomsky, 1965).

6. WHAT ARE COMPETENCIES?

In everyday language, many people associate the word competition with certain
situations in which several people compete for an award or a position: for
example in a sports competition. However, there is another meaning of the term and
that is the one we are interested in education.

Competence involves being able to use knowledge in the execution of actions and
products (whether abstract or concrete). In this sense, the aim is to transcend from
a memoristic education, mainly based on the mental reproduction of
concepts and without greater application, to an education that, in addition to theoretical mastery,
facilitates the development of applied, investigative, and practical skills, which enable them to
of learning a lived experience and truly useful for their lives and for the
country development.

Competence is:
The ability to understand, interpret, and transform important aspects of
the personal, social, natural, or symbolic reality.” Each competence is thus
understood as the integration of three types of knowledge: "conceptual (knowing),
procedural (knowing how) and attitudinal (being).
What is new in competencies? Hasn't it been discussed for many years that
it was necessary to support people so they could acquire knowledge and develop
skills and abilities?" The concept of competencies sounds quite similar. The
the major difference is… that this new concept of competencies encompasses the
development of a person's attitudes, what the individual is in their affection and their
will, seeking an integrative approach in which the person, from their being, puts in
game all his knowledge and his know-how.” (Irigoin, 1997).

Another new aspect is that by developing these knowledge areas, students learn.
new ways of studying that are very useful for them to be able to understand and
to insert themselves efficiently and effectively in various situations of their lives.

Another definition that we would propose: competence is the integrated combination

of knowing, knowing how to do, and knowing how to be with others; that are put into
action for adequate performance in a given context.

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Competence is also considered as 'The individual's ability to take the
initiative and act in your environment, instead of adopting a passive attitude and letting
the environment controls it and determines all its actions [...] the competent person has the
necessary skills to successfully intervene in your own world and consciousness
necessary to face new situations (Nardine, 1981).

Based on these definitions of competence, other related ones have been developed.
with specific areas of action. However, they all agree on taking into account
not only the knowledge of procedures to carry out an activity, but also
the information related to them and, as a result of these two aspects, a
favorable attitude.

If we consider the common elements extracted from the definitions, we can

approach a concept of competence as the integrated combination of
knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are put into action for a
adequate performance in a given context. Moreover, there is talk of a knowledge
act by mobilizing all resources.

In summary, "It is not about something that a person learns to repeat it later in
the time within the same coordinates. It is a learning that constitutes a
capital that the person, with all that they are and have, adapts and puts at stake
according to the circumstances in which one finds oneself...

The approach to competency development involves the selection of topics.

relevant to the life of students and the country, called Axes
Transversals. This leads to a Learning Framework with greater meaning and
social functionality, so that education gradually takes on the role
central that corresponds to the development of each individual, the family, the community
and the nation.

In this sense, the relevant issues for life come to modify in a way
important the teaching-learning process, to be developed in a way
effective, they rely on a new pedagogical approach that ensures learning of
real understanding of these topics, a demonstration-based approach and the
creative communication of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes.

Another common feature in the definitions of competence is the emphasis they place on
in performance. We also emphasize it in the definition of competence.
what we adopt:

What do we mean when we mention efficient and effective performance? A

Efficient performance implies the mastery of a specific activity, and it is effective.
so much so that this domain can be applied in different situations.

The ability to perform efficiently and effectively depends on integration.

of three elements: information, procedures, and attitudes.

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These elements are known as conceptual, procedural, and
attitudinal. It concerns three types of knowledge of different orders, these components are
are presented simultaneously and complementarily in the action of the person. This
integration is of great importance for achieving a competency, that's why during
the formation process requires the three components to be present and articulated.
Concept-based learning and skill development
And attitudes should also ensure that there is reflection on the processes carried out,
in order to identify the best practices and lessons learned that can be useful
to apply in other situations outside of school.

In conclusion, 'Competition is the possibility for an individual to mobilize, in a way ...

internalized, an integrated set of resources aimed at resolving situations -
problems.

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