Diagnose and assess the weakness factors of Curriculum Quality in Architectural Department in AL-Nahrain University

Abstract

The Curriculum does not arise from nothing ... but there are many foundations or determinants that affect them, that gain the utmost importance when Designing ,Evaluating &Organizing the Curriculum and it’s a multi-overlapping determinants, and the fact that today's world is passing through a stage of scientific development and massive technological advances, this stage is Known by the scientific and technological Revolution, which added to the human civilization huge toll of knowledge in many areas, that increasing in quantity and quality day after day, and while the educational or academic institutions is a social institutions created by the community for the continuation and preparation of individuals to carry out their responsibilities in it, and also are considered a tributary which supplies the community with different scientific persons that advance the reality for the better, many efforts have been made in the research and studies in the field of evaluation and the quality of the Curriculum in academic institutions, given the escalating emphasis on the concept of Reliability and Quality in the educational institutions in general and higher education in particular, such as universities and research centers. And in considering the above statements , the research seeks todiagnose or explore the weaknesses in the quality of the curriculum in one of the engineering colleges departments after being selected the University of AL-Nahrain, where was the workplace of the researcher and after his contribution in the preparation and study of the self-Assessment reports in one of its scientific Department, that was the Architectural Department ,so it has emerged the need for exploring the weaknesses in the curriculum after doing the self-Assessment reports according to CRITERIA of (ABET) for Reliability . The research has selects some academic years that was (2011-2012) and (2013-2014) to review the self-Assessment reports pertaining to curriculum, which has been adopted and available in Department Documentation section which has been possible for the researcher to make use of them. The research concluded that the Curriculum for those years had suffered from a certain weakness in some factors that have been drawn from the case study process, which we can summarize it in the lack of availability of textbooks and references that allocated to support and enhance the vocabulary of subjects, in addition to the educational potential and laboratories were not suitable.. as well as the limited availability of lecture halls and its supplementary educational equipment which impacted directly on the quality of the implementation of the Curriculum ,the research has proceeds a set of recommendations, including the need to pay attention in addition to avoiding the weaknesses diagnosed towards maintaining the quality of the performance and implementation of the Curriculum on one hand, it has recommended the need to activate the lecture methods appropriate to vocabulary for different subjects, to maintain quality performance and implementation of the Curriculum to deal with the diagnosed weaknesses on the other.