Outcome Based Education without basics is betrayal of students
The issue of Outcome Based Education (OBE) pushes on in PNG. Views are expressed weekly in the media that contain broad grains of truth.
Outcome Based Education has failed in Papua New Guinea. True. The nation should return to the old system but with a range of innovations to lift the standard True.
The old system of Outcome Based Education was poorly introduced. True. There was little or no preparation of teachers. True. Outcome Based Education has had the basics removed. True.
In recent months a big gun has started to blaze away in the form of educational consultant Aaron Hayes who was a senior contract officer in the days before and during the time that OBE was introduced.
He has prepared top reports on Google and in the PNG media. He was a teacher with an administrative panorama whereas I have a practical classroom view on Mastery Learning. Please click:
rausimobe.wordpress.com/.../some-home-truths-about-the-education-...Cached
11 Feb 2011 – Citizens' Campaign Against Outcome-Based Education (OBE)
system in ... THE EDUCATION REFORMS IN PNG (By Aaron Hayes)
Aaron is an old sparring partner who has had several disagreements with the founder of AIDS Holistics. But in the end, our views are very close. We are old school.
He has the view of an educational consultant and I am the class room teacher who has promoted a Mastery Learning strategy from early times. We are both expatriates on the side of Papua New Guinea, not fly by night consultants from Australia.
He has explained the poor implementation of OBE with inexperienced consultants who pushed the new strategy and played tricks. Then they left.
There have been two major articles in the Post Courier on 4 - 5 November 2012 in which he calls OBE scandalous. Please click:
19 hours ago – OBE is scandalous. AARON HAYES says the
introduction of Outcomes Based Education in PNG is a huge
scandal and heads should roll.
As a class room teacher and senior subject master on PNG schools, I am saddened that all this is happening. There is so much needed to be done to make OBE a success but it has not been done.
There is much wrong with PNG education that is the result of diminishing returns starting from independence. Please click:
So much has been removed from education that weakens the capacity of OBE. There was the world wide removal of basics with removal of memorization and note taking.
Aaron mentions these in his latest reports. I have set out the ways in which education has been sabotaged. Please click:
My only serious disagreement with Aaron lies with vernacular learning in elementary school. He points out the success of this project overseas.
But there is a serious flaw in PNG in that there are 800 vernacular languages with only a fraction of these committed to paper.
In many schools, the only reference is the Bible translated by the Summer Institute of Linguistics in preparation for the Second Coming.
I have written against vernacular teaching in elementary schools but suggested that such language learning takes place for 2 lessons a week. English is the key language. Please click:
My contribution to the issue has been in the preparation of extended sequences of Mastery Learning exercises. The big criticism of OBE is that too much is left to the teachers.
Too much focus is seen to be on research which is not possible in schools with poor libraries and computer access.
But Mastery Learning involves mastery of practical skills supported by the teacher. Research skills come much later, once the basics are mastered.
The task ahead is to design sequences for student mastery. There are mastery sequences at the bottom of the report below in English and Biology.
Design is the work of a highly skilled team of teachers to create, categorize and validate. Please click:
SOLOMON ISLANDS TEACHER ON OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION
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