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Curriculum developers, whether at a systemic or classroom-based level, become involved in complex decision-making about what is important and valuable for students to learn; how and when that learning can be enabled; and what evidence will tell us that learning has taken place. This paper identifies a few of the significant influences and constraints on the systemic curriculum development process, and argues that we need to acknowledge the limitations of personal and professional knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that there are two problems in educational theory. People, today, are most concerned about practical decision-making in curriculum; and whether it should be an area of expert decision-making, because only experts are steeped in the theories of learning and pedagogy, or open to parents or indeed even students. Some would argue against expert decision-making on grounds that we have no solid theories of human learning, etc., to back up the practice of education, unlike nuclear technology which rests on the firmer ground of nuclear physics. If social science theory is impossible in principle, it has not been demonstrated so far. Nevertheless, there are two lessons arising over and above the problem of the meaning of theory. First, even if educational theories are possible and one has access to them, they would not ensure absolute and unassailable certainty. Second, the reason that certainty is impossible and, perhaps also, the reason that people encounter such difficulty in generating educational theory.