COIMBATORE:
Outcome-based education (OBE)-a recent policy initiative of the Central government-is the need of the hour, experts, who attended a workshop on OBE in the city said.
The education system, which focuses on goals or outcomes that a student needs to achieve at the end of the course, isn't a single-method approach, said academicians, who attended a workshop organised by the Association of Self-Financing Arts, Science and Management Colleges of
Tamil Nadu recently. "OBE emphasises on learner-centric education than teacher-centric education. It focuses on outcomes of a course that can be seen as quantifiable attributes in a graduate. After the course, a graduate should develop cognitive ability in the particular subject and also should cultivate values such as teamwork, communication skills and emotional values," said Sudhanshu Bhushan, head of the department of higher education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.
OBE focuses on efficiency of learning, said Marmar Mukhopadhyay, director, Educational Technology and Management Academy,
Haryana. "The system seeks to provide evidence that learning has really happened. Today, there is a lot of open educational resources available in the internet. When a 15-minute video could be much more an effective teaching tool than a four-hour lecture, it's time teachers change their approach," he said.
Academics said though OBE was almost a 25-year-old idea, Indian academia has just woken up to it. "The first book on OBE was published in 1994. Countries like Malaysia had implemented OBE in 2007. It originally started in medical education, where outcomes are essential," said Mukhopadhyay.
There were clear policy signals from the centre that the country's education system is shifting towards OBE, said Bhushan. "The higher education commission of India draft bill also mentions the implementation and monitoring of OBE," he said.
