Program of Study

an outline specifying the content and scope of knowledge, abilities, and skills that a student is expected to master in a given field of study, as well as the content of the field’s individual units and topics that are studied at each grade level. A program of study sometimes includes explanatory notes indicating the study goals of a given subject, the sequence for learning the subject’s content, the organization of the subject’s content, the methodology for teaching the subject, and the subject’s relationships to other subjects.

The content of a program of study should take into account the most recent achievements of science, technology, and culture, the social goals of the students’ upbringing, the development of the students’ creative abilities, and the continuity between the material being learned and material previously assimilated. The content of the program of study should also take into account the interrelationship among all the subjects studied, which reflects the interrelationship that exists among corresponding phenomena in the objective world.

The content of education that is outlined in a program of study is made explicit in textbooks, educational aids, and methodological instructions.

The USSR has standardized programs of study for educational institutions and for specialized disciplines.