Abstract

Entering the twenty-first century with the development of communities, they are faced with the necessity of
moving towards a learning society. University must extend the learning opportunities and improve the quality of
them with curriculum design by learning society approach to respond to the necessity. Researchers believe that
some conditions for success of this curriculum are required. Present article answers to this question: "Which
requirements and challenges university faces with to design a curriculum with learning society approach?" To
answer it in a qualitative-quantitative research, the viewpoints of 24 higher education experts through interview
and comments of 153 faculty members through a questionnaire were evaluated. The content validity of the
questionnaire was confirmed by experts and the reliability was estimated by Cronbach's alpha (0.96). Finally, the
results showed that the university faces with these challenges: The non-substitution of learning instead of
education; Incomplete identification of the real needs of students and society and non-revision the curriculum to
suit the changing needs; Poor communication between levels of higher education curriculum and the previous
degrees; Centralization in curriculum planning; Lack of flexibility in curriculum; Inadequate use of curriculum
experts and disregarding role of faculty and student to develop the curricula.
Statistical analysis of survey findings also indicated that there is no significant difference among the viewpoints
of faculty members about these challenges, based on the variables of gender, education, academic ranking, type
of university and experience in teaching and management (p>0.05).

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