Constructing the national curriculum: an inspiration from Romania

The article gives a survey of some activities in constructing the national curriculum for compulsory education and upper secondary schools in Romania. The survey is based on the document ‚The New National Curriculum“ published by the Ministry of Education (Bucharest, 2000, English version). First, some basic data about the structure of Romanian educational system are presented followed by a detailed description of the new curriculum: Its general principles and objectives; key concepts; curricular standards of achievement; subject areas; competencies; values and attitudes in the new curriculum. Among the positive features of the new curriculum is its procedure of development, i.e. by experts of the National Curriculum Board. This is compared with the situation in the Czech Republic in which some documents concerning curricular changes have been developed in recent years but the national curriculum as such has not been constructed as yet.