OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION BETRAYS STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

I have been a teacher since 1965 when I started my career as a teacher of Grade 3 students in Brisbane. 

At that time, teachers were required to bring students to a STANDARD. Grade 3 students had to know their multiplication tables off by heart. 

They were to spell words and write out any incorrect words 50 times. They chanted sentences and spelling.

This was STANDARDS BASED EDUCATION that required students to master skills and knowledge and commit to memory for a lifetime.

From there, I became a high school teacher but never forgot the importance of STANDARDS. I drilled students daily with regular revision of words and knowledge. Students did well in the exams.

On leaving education in Queensland, I came first to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force to train officer cadets at Igam Barracks in 1975. Then I became a teacher in Papua New Guinea High Schools teaching English.

In my classes, students always achieved Distinctions and Credits at Bumayong, Busu and Immanuel Lutheran High Schools.

Only recently has the penny dropped on my quite spectacular success in teaching English. I was ignoring Outcome Based Education by overriding teaching with STANDARDS BASED EDUCATION.

Students mastered skills in writing sentences, paragraphs and essays on a wide range of topics including Personal Development.

They could write 10 lines on family, rights, responsibilities, needs, domestic violence, family planning, marriage, selecting a wife or husband, and dozens more. They could do it over and over.

I had ignored Outcome Based Education that required students to read, understand, answer questions and check their answers. I taught the knowledge and skills and required students to practise, practise and practise.

The Outcome Based study turned teachers into private study supervisors. Disgraceful. I was trained as a teacher to pound in the knowledge and revise regularly. I am a teacher not a study supervisor. Damn it !!

Now Outcome Based Education is in the rubbish bin with thousands of casualties among past students.

PNG students are studying English as a second language. They do not have the maturity or skill to master their own texts and teach themselves. 

The job of a teacher is to TEACH based on STANDARDS.

P.S. I used Standards Based Education on this blog. Over 8 years on this my second blog , I have posted 2600 reports that drill and drill Positive Living, HIV/AIDS, nutrition, gays, lesbians, paedophiles, antiretroviral medication and many more. 

The message has been pounded home across Papua New Guinea and the world. I am now repeating old texts with new polish for the next generation of blog readers. My own standard is rising.

This blog has almost 80,000 hits from PNG readers with about 150 every two days. Paedophiles beware.

Major Bruce Copeland BA BEdSt (Qld) (Australian Army retired)

Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign language (Cambridge)

Teacher of English and Personal Development

Counsellor in Positive Living with HIV/AIDS