The Hidden Curriculum and the Development of Latent skills: The Praxis

Abstract

The paper sought to explore the extent to which the hidden curriculum also referred to as the collateral curriculum can be used to develop skills, values and attitudes for learners to inculcate in order to develop the affective domain. Primarily, education is supposed to ensure the holistic development of any individual with a balanced development of all the domains. However, current educational policies and their implementation overemphasise the development of intellectual abilities to the detriment of, especially, the affective domain due to narrow and restrictive accountability practices. Since learners learn more than what they are taught in class and what they acquire from the school’s culture stays much longer with them, it is reasonable they are given the opportunity to explore in order to create a school environment and a culture that would effectively evolve such soft skills and affective elements for learners. Various aspects of school life from which affective elements can be practically derived have been discussed with its attendant educational policy implications.