A Comparative Study of Mathematics Curriculum in Singapore and India to Search for the Implication for the Curriculum Revision in Korea

교육과정 개정의 시사점 도출을 위한 싱가포르와 인도 수학 교육과정의 비교${\cdot}$분석

The investigation of the curriculum in other countries provides meaningful implications to reflect our own curriculum. Since Korea is now under the curriculum revision, international comparative research was conducted with the curricula of Singapore and India to elicit some implications. These two countries were especially chosen because their curricula have not been actively investigated yet. Singapore mathematics curriculum starts the tracking based on students' mathematical ability from the 4th grade, and provides different curricula for the three tracks. This differentiated curriculum provides rich implications to next Korean curriculum which aims to classify the contents based on students' mathematical achievements. Indians, who have contributed significantly in the history of mathematics, have unique mathematics curriculum, remote from so called 'canonical curriculum'. After the U.S. announced the Curriculum and Evaluation Standard for School Mathematics in 1989 and the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics in 2000, many countries benchmarked these NCTM documents, and Korea was no exception. Since each country has their own school system, educational environment, and national mentality, it is not desirable to just adopt the curriculum of other countries. In this regard, Indians who have preserved their own mathematics curriculum can be a model. In sum, when we revise the curriculum, it is required to keep the balance between the open-mindedness to accept the strengths of other curricula, and the conservative attitude to preserve our own characteristics of the curriculum.