What is a Curriculum?

Put very simply, the curriculum has a ‘what’ and a ‘why?’ Let's deal with the ‘what’ first. A curriculum has been defined as ‘an attempt to communicate the essential features and principles of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice’. (Stenhouse,1975)

These principles were further elaborated by the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board ( PMETB ) in 2008 when it stated that the medical curricula it approves must include a statement of:

1. The intended aims and objectives, content, experiences, outcomes and processes of a programme.
2. A description of the structure and expected methods of learning, teaching, feedback and supervision.
3. The knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours the trainee will achieve.

Thus a curriculum is a comprehensive description of a learning programme that includes learning and teaching methods, and intended programme outcomes. We should also think about what the curriculum is not, which is a syllabus. The two terms are often used interchangeably but the difference between them is important. A syllabus has been defined as a ‘concise statement of the main subjects of a course of teaching or lecture’, and it therefore only defines parts of item 1 in the PMETB list above. As a concept, a curriculum is much broader than a syllabus.

When we think about the curriculum we can also ask ourselves ‘why?’ The purpose of the curriculum is to convey what GPs do and how they do it in a way that allows new GPs to develop and existing GPs to develop further.

There are inherent tensions and contradictions within the curriculum.

Explore the tensions in the curriculum

The Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) was the regulating body responsible for approving specialty training curricula until 2010, when these powers transferred to the General Medical Council (GMC).

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