Outcome Based Education

Outcome-based education (OBE) is an educational premise that focuses mainly on the goals or outcomes. By the end of the educational understanding each student should have accomplished the goal. There is no specified approach of teaching or assessment in OBE; instead classes, opportunities, and assessments should all assist the students in achieving the particular outcome.

There are different definitions for outcome-based education. The most widely used one is the four principles suggested by Spady (1994).

An OBE curriculum means starting with a clear picture of what is important for students to be able to do, then organizing the curriculum, instruction and assessment to make sure this learning ultimately happens. The four basic principles are (Spady, 1994):

1) Clarity of focus
This means that the teachers should focus on helping students to widen their knowledge, skills and personalities that will facilitate them to accomplish the projected outcomes that have been clearly articulated.

2) Designing down
It means that the curriculum design must be established with a clear definition of the projected outcomes that students are to accomplish by the end of the program. Once this has been done, all instructional decisions are then made to guarantee achievement of the desired end result.

3) High expectations
It means that teachers should set up high, challenging standards of performance in order to promote students to employ deeply in what they are learning. Helping students to achieve high standards is linked very closely with the idea that successful learning promotes more successful learning.

4) Expanded opportunities
Teachers must endeavor to present extended opportunities for all students. This principle is based on the idea that not all learners can learn the same thing in the same way and in the same time. However, most students can achieve high standards if they are given appropriate opportunities.

OBE is more of a philosophy than an identical set of practices. Many states and school structures have implemented the philosophy in part by emphasizing the outcomes that schools are expected to achieve, but few have altered their rules and regulations for being attuned with the idea that every characteristic of schooling must be based on outcomes rather than on other deliberations, such as span of the school year etc. Similarly, some programs that are consistent with the OBE philosophy do not use that terminology. Some have no special designation; some are called results-based or performance-based