Outcome-based education—a learner-centric teaching-learning approach—involves a paradigm shift in terms of reorientation of curriculum, delivery of learning material, and assessment in light of learning outcomes. In 2014, India became a signatory to the Washington Accord on OBE through the National Board of Accreditation, which looks after the accreditation of engineering and management programs. Later, UGC and NCTE also issued OBE manuals for general and teacher education institutes, respectively. It is believed that India faces diverse and complex challenges in implementing OBE. These include a lack of understanding and awareness of the OBE among the stakeholders, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient faculty training, and difficulties in developing appropriate assessment tools and methods. This chapter has examined the general and discipline-specific challenges in implementing OBE in the Indian context. A set of recommendations and potential solutions to deal with the challenges to OBE implementation in India has also been listed.
Top1. Introduction
Outcome-based system of education marks a paradigm shift in educational theory and practice. It is a learner-centric approach to education wherein all the processes, namely, curriculum, content, assessment and evaluation, are outcome-oriented. The term “outcome-based education” was coined by William G. Spady - an educational academician and psychologist in 1988 (Spady, 1988). The very next year, Washington Accord was signed as an agreement to create an OBE framework for undergraduate engineering programmes. Initially, only six countries, namely, USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand signed the accord. By 2017, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Russia, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkiye, China and Pakistan had become full signatories of WA (Thirumoorthy, 2021).
At the time of writing of this chapter, India boasts of the highest proportion of the young population in the world, with the modal value of age falling around 20-24 year slab. At the same time, very high unemployment rates – as much as 28 to 29 per cent in some states like Rajasthan and Haryana, are posing a serious question to the nation’s polity and society. One of the reasons for the present state of employability of Indian youth can be traced to the national employability statistics which state that only one out of five graduates possess employability attributes. Experts attribute this piquant situation to the traditional education model adopted by the commonplace public and private sector tertiary and secondary-level educational institutes, which leaves a huge gap between the skill sets imparted by the institutions and the skills required by the employers. OBE model may be seen as an effort to empower the graduates with the skill set that makes them employable.
Realization of OBE requires a paradigm shift from teacher-centric and theoretic-conceptual knowledge of course curricula to the attainment of graduate attributes based on proficiency, competency and skill set gained by the student during the programme of study. The OBE paradigm shift starts from rewriting the vision and mission statements of the higher education institutions to designing the curriculum keeping in mind Bloom’s taxonomy, programme educational objectives (PEO), generic programme outcomes (PO), programme-specific outcomes (PSO), and course outcomes (CO), to delivery of learning, and measuring outcomes’ attainment levels by way of a proper mix of assessment methods. Target attainment levels are set for all levels of outcomes at the outset of the course/programme. Thereafter, education is imparted, learners are assessed and evaluated, and attainment levels are measured. In case the target stands achieved, the bar of attainment levels is raised for subsequent sessions, otherwise, the OBE methodology is reoriented to achieve the projected target levels (De Guzman, et al., 2017).
The traditional education model encourages memorization-based rote learning and lacks elements of critical thinking, life skills, ability enhancement, and conscious application of professional knowledge in real-life situations. It is characterized by passive learners, topic-based rigid curriculum and study material, teacher/instructor-centred learning, students’ learning limited by teachers’ capabilities, and the lack of curricular flexibility in what a learner can vie to learn. OBE, on the other hand, is seen as flexible and supportive of creative and innovative learning, relating the course content to real-life problems, capable of including recent trends in the curriculum on the fly, continuous improvement in learning processes, inherently capable of reorienting itself in light of stakeholder feedback received from current students, alumni, parents, administration, teachers, and employers (Nakkeeran, et al., 2018)
Although the realization of the full potential and benefits of OBE is a long-drawn process, yet, some benefits can be reaped at the early stages of its adoption. These benefits include conceiving programmes of education in tune with the job market and other societal needs, modifiable and flexible teaching methods, involvement of the stakeholder community in the institutional academic decision-making process, and custom-developed assessment strategies (Yusoff, et al., 2014).