Relevant Issues in Outcomes Based Education

3. 
Outcome-based education has been the topic
of acrimonious debates in many states and
school systems. The furor surprised some
educators who, after years of hearing calls for
“results” from political and business leaders,
assumed that most parents and citizens
would support a move to more definite
outcomes and means of assessing them.

4. 
Should education be outcome-based? Some
might argue that it already is, to some extent.
Nearly all education institutions have goals
that supposedly guide their work. When
educators plan curriculums or teachers plan
lessons for their classes, they usually start by
clarifying the purposes.

5. 
Still, advocates of OBE say that traditional
schools are really time-based. Teachers and
principals may want students to learn
something, but they typically allocate a
certain amount of time to study of that topic
and then move on, whether or not students
have mastered it. For schools to be fully
outcome-based, they must organize so that
outcomes are fixed, and time and other
resources needed to achieve the outcomes
are variable

6. 
OBE is more of a philosophy than a uniform set
of practices. Many states and school systems
have adopted the philosophy in part by
emphasizing outcomes schools are expected to
achieve, but few have changed all of their rules
and regulations to be compatible with the notion
that every aspect of schooling must be based on
outcomes rather than on other considerations,
such as length of the school year. Similarly, some
programs that are consistent with the OBE
philosophy do not use that terminology. Some
have no special designation; some are called
results-based or performance-based.

7. 

The Johnson City Model
A well-established example of OBE in actual
use is the Johnson City, New York, schools
(Vickery 1990). The Johnson City program,
called by its developers the Outcomes-Driven
Developmental Model or ODDM, was
launched by John Champlain in the early
1970s. The program was originally described
as a mastery learning program (the term
outcome-based was not in use at that time).

8. 
Al Mamary, former superintendent, says the
major difference between mastery learning and
ODDM is that ODDM puts increased emphasis on
the students‟ post‟s role. In a mastery learning
program, teachers take responsibility for making
sure that most students learn. Under ODDM,
students are informed of the outcomes and
expected to assume responsibility for achieving
them (Brandt 1994). ODDM is described as
having a strong philosophical and psychological
base as well as a technical one

9. October 31, 2012 (OBE is not sustainable in SI)

Before William Spady came into the picture,
Benjamin Bloom came up with his theory of
Mastery learning. Mastery learning failed in the
US and had been rejected outright. After five
years, in January of 1980 William Spady convened
a meeting to propose the implementation of OBE
philosophy where Bloom was also present and
said this „OBE is a new name for Mastery as it had
been destroyed by poor implementation.

10. 
William Spady is the director of the High
Success Network and Director of the
International Centre on Outcomes-Based
Restructuring. He is the „father of OBE‟.He
works with the Federal Government of the
USA and has a lot of influence over, states
and schools by helping them to implement
OBE. He is a sociologist with theories of
„socialization‟ on global terms.

12. 

Due to Spady‟s influence he convinced many
states to implement OBE. By the early 1990s
many States in the USA rejected OBE as it
failed to help students to progress
academically.
Many parents have argued that OBE is
egalitarian and it has not provided the best
kind of education for its people

13. 

The parents and concerned citizens argue
that OBE has its basis in mastery learning
which was thrown out of the education
system. Some Americans even go as far as
saying that OBE has Nazism and One World
Order elements.

14. 
In the US, after experimenting with OBE during
the 90s, the vast majority of the states have now
moved to what is termed a standards approach to
curriculum (see Shanker 1993, & Manno 1994).
And the reason as to why OBE was dropped in
favour of a standards approach curriculum is
because a standards approach, when compare to
OBE, is more academic in focus, relates to
specific year levels, unambiguous and curriculum
descriptors are expected to be concise,
measurable and based on academic disciplines

15. 

The philosophy of OBE also planted in countries
like Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand and
recently Papua New Guinea (PNG) also got
hooked onto it.
Given the central role OBE has played in
Australian education since the early 90s, there
appeared concrete evidence, demonstrating that
OBE had been not preparing younger generation
for another academic competitive level.

16. 
When compared OBE to an objective
approach, OBE is conceptually flawed and
difficult to implement. This leads to the once
bright promise of subject area standards
(OBE), has faded under a wide array of
criticisms, and the movement itself is bogged
down under its own weight

17. 
Thus, the former Australian education minister
Dr Brenden Nelson has reportedly described OBE
as a „‟ cancer „‟ and Australian education expert
Kevin Donnelly reports that „‟the adoption of
outcomes-based education (in the USA) is
considered a failed and largely irrelevant
experiment. The Victorian government education
committee chairman, Mitch Field has reportedly
described outcomes-based education curriculum
a „‟a failed experiment that should be declared
DOA (dead on arrival).

18. 

In the Western Australia they are now
reintroducing syllabus documents that
specify clear learning objectives and
traditional methods of making students work
in a clear move away from outcomes-based
education. An independent review of Western
Australia‟s education system found that the
states implementation of OBE since 1998
„‟cannot be regarded as a success.

19. 
South Africa is another country that had
introduced an outcomes-based approach to
curriculum development. Of interest, as
occurred in the US following the introduction
of OBE, is that there is also opposition to
what has become the new orthodoxy in
designing the intended curriculum.

21. 

Weakening the idea of striving for success by
eliminating the concept of failure
•
Unduly emphasizing criterion
referenced assessment to the detriment of
norm referenced assessment

22. 


•
Unfairly increasing the workload on
teachers by imposing an individual-based,
diagnostic assessment regime
•
Reducing the emphasis on subject
knowledge in preference to skills and process

23. 
Being couched in education jargon that
disempowers and alienates classroom
teachers

24. 

To-date many South Africans secondary
schools and primary schools have (now)
moved (back) to a more academically based,
that is an objective curriculum and the OBE is
regarded as a null and void.