Supercomplexity and the Curriculum

For some time (around 100 years), the dominant influence in the shaping of curricula has been that of the academics in their separate knowledge fields. In the contemporary world, that academic hegemony is dissolving as curricula become subject to two contending patterns of change. Firstly, in a mass higher education system, there will be tendencies towards increased diversity in the components of curricula, the positioning of the providing institution being just one influence to which are added manifold 'external' influences, such as a growing student market and the interests of employers. Secondly, and in contradistinction to such diversity, as the state looks to see a greater responsiveness towards the world of work, it is possible that a universal shift in the direction of performativity is emerging: what counts is less what individuals know and more what individuals can do (as represented in their demonstrable 'skills'). Hitherto, systematic attention to curricula as such in higher education has been barely evident. Accordingly, curricula are taking on ad hoc patterns that are the unwitting outfall of this complex of forces at work, diversifying and universalising as−at the same time−these forces are. In consequence, curricula will be unlikely to yield the human qualities of being that the current age of supercomplexity requires.