Research-Oriented and Creativity-Based Curriculum: A Strategy for Enhancing the Quality of Higher Education

Curriculum, being a central aspect of the higher education system, is critical in improving the quality of education, developing intellectual abilities, and enhancing students’ research and creative abilities. In most developed nations, research-based and innovation-oriented curriculum reforms have revolutionised the structure of education and increased the possibility of innovation. Despite the fact that prevalent initiatives have been put in place in Afghanistan, the current curriculum is more traditional-centred-teacher-centred as opposed to the inclusion of analytical, research, and innovation among learners. This study investigates the role of the curriculum in encouraging research-oriented instruction and cultivating learners’ creative abilities. Official educational texts, policy documents, and authoritative reports were carefully selected and gathered as data, then coded, categorised, and thematically analysed with the help of the NCT (Noticing, Collecting, Thinking) approach. The recurrent nature of the manual reading of the documents allowed us to uncover constitutive themes and patterns applied to curriculum reform, giving a solid background to the development of critical thinking, problem-solving, and knowledge production, thus leading to the improvement of the educational quality. Suggestions are provided for curriculum reform in the higher education system of Afghanistan, with special attention to innovation- and student-centred learning curves, longitudinal comparison of curriculum reforms, and factual research on the impact of creativity- and research-oriented curricula on learning outcomes in different educational and cultural settings.