EVALUATING THE GAP BETWEEN OVERT AND OPERATIONAL CURRICULUM IN ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION: IMPLICATION FOR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

The term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program. However, experiences over time have shown that there is an apparent gap between overt curriculum (written as part of formal instruction to support the intentional instructional agenda of a school) and operational curriculum (actual curriculum that is delivered and presented by each teacher). This paper examined this gap in selected courses offered in the undergraduate architectural programme in Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria. The three selected courses were those that had been taught by different teachers in different academic sessions. Data was obtained from content analysis of overt and operational curricula of the selected courses and from lecture notes given to students. Findings revealed that there were fundamental gaps between overt and operational curriculum in the selected courses. Major gaps identified were that teachers’ subject overt curriculum to: their beliefs and interpretation; teaching styles; and available academic texts. The paper submits that these variations and deviations may have adverse effect on the training of future professionals and consequently on practice. The paper recommends that Schools of Architecture by way of policy should establish quality control and monitoring mechanism measure that ensures that ‘what is written is actually what is taught’.