Influence of Situational Factors on Curriculum Implementation

Quality Australian transnational vocational education relies on teachers addressing local factors. This chapter explores 13 teachers’ experiences of curriculum implementation in nine countries. The essence of the experience for these teachers was one of dissonance illustrated by five factors: (a) information, (b) resources, (c) material, (d) institutional and (e) student readiness. These factors were not accounted for in curriculum development, and consequently, their capacity to influence these factors was of most concern to them. These factors were manifested and experienced quite differently and combined influenced the teachers’ readiness for (a) enacting the curriculum as intended, (b) adapting for relevance, (c) engaging students in the content, and (d) facilitating student achievement. Thus, these factors set the potential and limits within which the intended curriculum could be enacted by teachers and learnt by students. These findings reveal that a teacher’s capacity to enact the curriculum as intended relies not only on their previous knowledge and experience of the curriculum, associated pedagogies and regulations but also on their ability to understand and influence contextual factors. This analysis informs the types of professional, material, practical and institutional support teachers need to understand their situation and guide their enactment of the Australian vocational curriculum internationally.