A tracing of the evolution of guidance on Bahá’í education of children and curriculum development from Bahá’í institutions since the 1970s and the growing response of the United Kingdom believers to it.

"...the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá do not present a definite and detailed education system, but simply offer certain basic principles and set forth a number of teaching ideals that should guide future Bahá’í educationalists in their efforts to formulate an adequate teaching curriculum which would be in full harmony with the spirit of the Bahá’í Teachings ... These basic principles are available in the sacred writings of the Cause ..." Shoghi Effendi B.E. (1987) p56

So wrote a secretary of Shoghi Effendi on his behalf in 1939. From the start we can see that everything we do in Bahá’í education must be guided by the Bahá’í Writings. Reference to Bahá’í Writings and Pronouncements is therefore made throughout this document.

The production of a United Kingdom National Bahá’í Curriculum has been a long-standing goal of the Friends in this country who have been involved in Bahá’í education. It has not proved an easy task, but then curriculum development has never been easy. So much is involved and so much hinges upon it. However, everything has its time and now seems to be the time.

Curriculum Studies, as a discreet branch of enquiry in the U.K., only emerged in the early 1970s, prompted partly by the pioneering work of the Open University. Interestingly enough, pronouncements about the Bahá’í education of children from the Universal House of Justice began at about the same time. The Naw Ruz 1974 message, launching the Five Year Plan, stated in paragraph 11:

This was followed, shortly afterwards, by the seventh of the compilations issued by the Universal House of Justice in August 1976, entitled: "Bahá’í Education". This compilation contains a letter from the House addressed to all National Spiritual Assemblies. In it they say:

They go on to say:

By the mid-1970s, then, we had the mandate and the general guidelines for the Bahá’í Education of children in the U.K. The Universal House of Justice gave us a further nudge when they wrote to the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom in January 1981 giving the homefront goals for the second phase of the Seven Year Plan. Paragraph six, subsection four reads:

Now the guidance was becoming more specific, and was repeated in the message of April 17th 1981 to all National Spiritual Assemblies, where it said that:

In their message to the Bahá’ís of the World on 20th October 1983, concerning social and economic development, the Universal House of Justice wrote:

This message proved prophetic for the United Kingdom as, on 7th October 1984, a Local Spiritual Assembly in South London, Lambeth, on its own initiative, convened a meeting for the establishment of the first regular Bahá’í Sunday School and started one week later with three classes in the hired premises of a full-time educational establishment. At that point the Bahá’í Education of children in the U.K. moved into a new era.

Previously all education provision had been in classes run by individuals, often containing children of widely varying ages, always dependent on the good will, resources and circumstances of the individual. The service provided was sacrificial, undoubtedly, but it was a frail service with no system, no back-up and no guaranteed continuity. If the teacher fell ill, moved away or lost interest, then the class died instantly.

With the founding of the first Thomas Breakwell School, there was a Director for the school, an Assistant Director, class teachers and assistant class teachers, a management committee, a timetable, terms, a proper planning of lesson schemes in advance, homework, and an educational consultant on hand to conduct teacher training and to produce handbooks which described how such a school is set up, how to become an effective teacher in a Bahá’í school, a syllabus for use in such schools and how to be effective as a parent in relation to such schools. All this was to ensure a continued, regular and systematic education for the children. Suddenly, there was a new awareness of Bahá’í Education and a new excitement. From this grew the Bahá’í Education Committee with its departments for Child, Youth and Adult education, and the Bahá’í Sunday Schools, now called Community Schools, began to spread across the country, even abroad. It also led to the holding of several education symposia where Bahá’í educational ideas and experiences could be shared more widely.

With the launch of the Six Year Plan, the Universal House of Justice devoted an entire section of its 25th February 1986 message, to all National Spiritual Assemblies, to the Bahá’í education of children and youth. It was major objective number six:

Four key words are used here - REGULAR, SYSTEMATIC, TRAIN and GUIDANCE. The London Thomas Breakwell School was pleased to have anticipated the wishes of the Universal House of Justice in these areas, and the newly formed Bahá’í Education Committee had four clear tasks to work on.

In terms of a Bahá’í Curriculum, per se, the first clear call for the formulation of a National Bahá’í Curriculum came in a paper read at the first Bahá’í Education Symposium on 23rd June 1985 at the Bahá’í Centre in London. The paper was entitled "The Implementation in the United Kingdom of Bahá’í Educational Principles" and suggested the formulation of a National Bahá’í Education Committee with ten goals to achieve. Goal number five stated:

Nearly four years later, a Second Symposium on Bahá’í Education was held at Newman College Birmingham from 31st March to 2nd April 1989 with, as the preface to its proceedings states, the objectives of:

Of the 28 addresses and papers contained in the proceedings, entitled "Trends in Bahá’í Education" (1990), two actually addressed the subject of Bahá’í curriculum development head on (indeed, they were the two with the word "curriculum" in their titles), and one attempted a systematic protocol of the questions and processes Bahá’í educationalists might go through when trying to set up a Bahá’í curriculum. Clearly, this was still premature.

With the inauguration of the Three Year Plan, at Ridvan 1993, the National Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the U.K. took as one of its goals to develop and expand the role of Bahá’í education. The fifth of five objectives, stated on page 19 of its Three Year Plan Document was:

Here, at last, was a specific injunction to produce a curriculum, and this was a key feature of the brief for the appointment of the new Child Education Committee in December 1993, following the reorganisation of the B.E.C. The reference in the letter of appointment stated:

The National Assembly included with the brief some extracts from a letter of the Counsellor and drew particular attention to a statement taken from the International Teaching Centre’s letter dated 17th November 1992:

A number of believers had expressed the desire to use Bahá’í curricula developed elsewhere in the Bahá’í world, such as the United States or Australia, for the children’s schools and classes in this country. A letter from the House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United Kingdom, dated 13th February 1994 includes the following advice in relation to another question of a similar nature:

In order to answer its brief, and involve a wider circle of believers in the process, the Child Education Committee convened a Curriculum Day on 25th June 1994 at the London Bahá’í Centre. The purpose of the day was to introduce and explain the ideas associated with a curriculum and the process of setting one up, and to allow the Friends to consult upon the content and methods of a curriculum for Bahá’í Education in the U.K. A framework for such a curriculum was presented and various consultative exercises and a plenary session followed. From this day sprang a wider interest in and a stronger commitment to the process of Bahá’í Curriculum Development among the Friends.

Two phases in Bahá’í Education of children in the U.K. are so far discernible: a NON-FORMAL phase, lasting from the origins of the Faith in the U.K. up until the founding of the first Thomas Breakwell School in 1984, and characterised by widely-scattered, piecemeal and unco-ordinated provision with individual teachers; and a FOUNDATION phase, lasting from 1984 to the present, and characterised by a greater awareness of the importance of child education and the spread of Community Schools along with the formalisation of support materials and occasional scattered provision of teacher training.

It remains to be seen, with the final production of a National Bahá’í Curriculum and its supporting documents, whether the U.K. Bahá’í Community has entered yet another, a CONSOLIDATION phase, in its approach to Bahá’í Education, characterised by a regularisation and systematisation of the Community Schools, by a greater formalisation of local children’s classes, by a systematic programme of teacher training, and perhaps, most importantly, by a more universal realisation of the importance of child education together with a greater willingness to play an active part in it, whether as teachers, parents, directors or support staff.

In the construction of a National Bahá’í Curriculum we must be guided, first of all, by the Bahá’í Writings, then by our Institutions, whether elected or appointed. We must also take into consideration current curriculum practice in the outside world, as the Universal House of Justice have said, insofar as we need to couch our curriculum in terms that people working in education can readily understand and in a way that it can be easily assimilated by non-Bahá’í educational institutions.

If the Bahá’ís do not use the accepted terminology then they risk giving rise to confusion among non-Bahá’ís and Bahá’ís engaged in education generally, or, perhaps worse, may appear poorly informed or inexpert in educational matters. If the Bahá’ís wish to be taken seriously, if they wish to extend their influence to outside educational agencies, then they must talk the same educational language or be simply ignored, marginalised and dismissed.

The creation of a well-organised, systematic and balanced Bahá’í educational service for the children and youth of the United Kingdom is probably the single most important task that faces the U.K. Bahá’í community at present. Once such a service is in place we can look forward to long-term success in the teaching field, in the maturation of our divine institutions, and in the first stirrings of the development of a distinctive Bahá’í identity and civilisation. The production of a National Bahá’í Curriculum is an important element in the establishment of such a service