Shadow schools minister Nick Gibb said the review was a worrying step in the wrong direction, with confusing programmes of study.

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State schools will still have to teach national curriculum subjects, but not the detailed programmes of study, except for the last two years of primary school.

BBC: Education & Family

Ministers say the curriculum will be slimmed down, but there will be "detailed programmes of study" for English, maths and science that will set out the "core knowledge" expected.

BBC: Education & Family

Prof Mary James, who was part of the government's expert panel, told the TES she was broadly supportive of the simpler curriculum but highlighted the fact that the sections on the overall aims for secondary education had simply been reproduced from primary programmes of study.

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Originally the San Francisco researchers had hoped to do a comparative study of different agencies' programmes, but for this project only Compassion chose to take part.

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Over the past few decades, Bangladesh and various NGOs have instituted several educational programmes such as universal (compulsory and free) primary education and the establishment of village libraries and village study circles in an effort to provide its citizens with access to quality education and thus to promote national economic development, poverty alleviation and social empowerment and transformation.

UNESCO: Ganokendra Model of Community Learning Centres