OBE: SIGN OF HARD TIMES

Outcome Based Education gained force in the United States in the 1950s to the 1970s. It all started with the Cold War and launching of the Soviet Sputnik satellite.

US had always rested comfortable in the belief that the capitalist way of life was superior to the communist way. But here was a communist satellite circling the skies.

Do not forget the paranoia in the US, the result of fear of Joseph Stalin and his spoken plan to revolutionize the world. He died in 1953 to be replaced by Nikita Krushchev who gave the Cold War a new lease of life.

US began to reassess economic growth. Education became primary focus. To rise as a technological nation required new strength in mathematics and science. Education had to be relevant to national needs. No more romantic poetry and Shakespearean drama.

Education had to have outcomes. This message reached the Australian Army in mid-1970s and pushed Army Education towards measurable outcomes.

From 1956, Benjamin Bloom was at the forefront of this movement with his focus on making education more accountable and more effective. There is nothing wrong with this. Teachers do not have the license to teach whatever they like.

Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains
5 Jun 1999 ... Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains ... A committee of colleges, led by
Benjamin Bloom (1956), identified three domains of educational
www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html - Cached - Similar

But teachers of the USA worked to sabotage this. With no fanfare across the world, the focus of education changed. Suddenly the old basics were out including grammar, spelling, writing, and vocabulary extension.
It became a tug-of-war on who had the right to control the national curriculum.

In a dictatorship, this could be called treason. In USSR, Stalin would have destroyed the teaching profession just as he destroyed the middle class farmers for not selling wheat at reduced prices to the cities for the industrial workers.

In the developing countries, there have to be outcomes to the money spent on Education. If not, education becomes an exercise in nothing at all. It is not preparation for adulthood. It becomes nothing. Not even preparation for university and other higher study.