Issues in OBE

An Overview of Outcome-Based Educationby Ron Brandt

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.

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.

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

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.

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).

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

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.

Where did Outcomes come from? 

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.

OBE has been designed to prove his theories. He started the theory and philosophy of OBE in 1982 in the United States.

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

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. 

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

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. 

What other countries say about OBE

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

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). 

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.

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. 

A South African secondary school principal, Dr Malcolm Venter (2000), in a paper presented at the Australian Principals Associations Professional Development council(apadc) Conference 2000, presented a range of OBE criticisms that can be summarised as follows. 

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

•        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

Being couched in education jargon that disempowers  and alienates classroom teachers 

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.