OBE Model, 1994 - Present

The emergence of “Outcome-Based Education and Training” (OBET) is the result of three past backgrounds: the first was the predominance of “competency-based modular education and training” in the South African industry, after 1985. The second was the recognition of Australian and British “outcomes” reproductions in the strategy expansion effort started by the ANC and COSATU, since the early 1990s. The third was the revival of the fundamental rhetoric of People‟s instruction, which first emerged in the warmness of the fight, in the mid-1980s. These three backgrounds have been mixed together to create a mixture instructive practice, OBET, which has required to go beyond the fine cognitive boundaries of ability models, by including the broad-minded educational values of the People‟s learning. This has created a learning practice, which is at the same time fundamental in broad practice, but behaviouralist in evaluation expertise (Slamat, 2009).

Later the mid-1990s, Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) has generated the only greatest significant curriculum debate in the history of South African education. Jansen and Christie (1999) highlight that the Human Science Research Council (HSRC) has followed such an aggressive and public debate, not only on the conditions of change executed by OBE, but on the logical idea and political rights on which this model of education is based. The year 1990, was a dangerous revolving point in the curriculum debates in South Africa. A coherent and predictable strategy program for education in South Africa has been established (Jansen, 2004b). Ramsay (2009) acknowledges that the apartheid state achieved a centralised curriculum policy system, which was xenophobic, strict, narrow, unchanging and biased. The curriculum of the apartheid state was a dominant and exclusive medium for education in the schools sector. The apartheid state published the education renewal strategy and a New Curriculum Model for South Africa (CUMSA). Jansen and Christie (1999) argue that the most important curriculum actor at the time was the National Training Board, later to become known outcomes-based education.

Once the OBE idea was spread, selections of teachers were involved in working on the practical implications, through special committees at national and provincial levels.

Teachers were not involved in the conceptualisation of OBE, or in decisions about its adoption (Pillay, 2010; Boud, 2013).

However, as the development of South African OBE continued, the experts from other countries assisted in the development thereof. These experts came from Scotland, Australia, New Zealand (which has a qualifications framework debate, rather than OBE), England and the USA. However, the Spady (1995) version of OBE continued to dominate.

The shift from “competency” mind-sets to a more progressive reading of outcomes first became noticeable as an emergent discourse in the ANC and COSATU policy document of 1993, A framework for lifelong learning, and the January 1994 ANC policy document, “A Policy Framework for Education and Training” (ANC Education Department, 1994). These initial signals of a possible future pedagogical direction (using outcomes-based ET) became significantly amplified in the 1994 National Training Strategy Initiative (National Training Board [NTB], 1994) and the ANC government‟s “White Paper on Education and Training” in March 1995 (NDoE, 1995a). However, the real turning point in the rise of an outcomes-based discourse, and the subsequent marginalization of a systemic discourse, can be associated with three important developments during the period of December 1995 to March 1997 (Jansen &

Christie, 1999). The first instance was the creation, by the Ministry and national Department of Education, of a number of stakeholder and expert commission teams, as well as counseling commissions, whose instruction was to improve the NQF and the idea of an cohesive method to school programs, using an outcomes-based practice. The National Department of Education issued, notably, A curriculum framework for general and further education and training (Republic of South Africa [RSA]. National Department of Education [NDoE], 1995), Lifelong learning through a National Qualifications Framework (Republic of South Africa [RSA]. Department of Education [DoE], 1996a; 1996b), and a National Qualifications Framework (National Curriculum Development Committee [NCDC], 1996), which were all definitive in establishing outcomes-based ET firmly in the South African educational plan.

The second decisive moment in establishing OBET as the dominant ET discourse was the release of the Department‟s first official public document on “outcomes-based

education and training”, issued in March 1997, entitled “Curriculum 2005: Lifelong learning for the twenty-first century” (Republic of South Africa [RSA]. National Department of Education [NDoE]. (1997a). Finally, the third development that contributed to the ascendancy of an outcomes-based approach was the launch, and first meeting of a fully constituted South African Qualifications Authority in August 1997, as well as the statutory deliberations, regarding the NQF, which followed thereafter (Brown, 2014). The South African Qualifications Authority has since passed a number of proclamations that begins to establish the essential building blocks of an OBET system, which is multi-dimensional. Its definition is elaborate, complex and bureaucratic. OBET is not about expressing learning objectives in the form of outcomes, because, this system shows the evidence of competence, in terms of standards recognized by the appropriate education, or training authority (Mulder, Weigel & Collins, 2007; Morcke, Dornan & Eika, 2013).

The following definition arises out of the Australian ET experience (Kraak, 1999; Cox, Imrie & Miller, 2014). Kraak (1999) indicates two central types of competency models:

performance standards and criterion–referenced assessment. Standards are central to OBET models, as they specify the nature of the tasks to be performed. Standards are, therefore, performance objectives that must be achieved, but they also serve as criteria for assessment of competence (Brockmann, Clarke & Winch, 2008). Outcomes-based systems are founded on criterion-referenced assessment. This assessment method is distinct from the more traditional norm-referenced system. The comparison is between the abilities of an individual and those of some other population on which the test has been standardised. The aim of the assessment is usually to draw comparisons between individuals and to determine whether individuals are progressing satisfactorily (Snyder, 2010; Biggs, 2011).

The South Africa‟s OBET places an accent on the learners first. This learner-centred approach has involved a model shift in the learning method, far from the traditional syllabus-oriented, content-based transmission model of learning, to one based on outcomes. Considering learners as empty containers that have to be completed with information, and regarding learners as inactive recipients, or repetition learners, deprive many learners of suitable occasions to understand their full potential (RSA, NDoE, 1997a).

Curriculum design in OBET is to be clear and sharing, joining the efforts of all investors: parents, instructors, education authorities, specialists and the students. The curriculum framework is provisional, with piloting, experimentation and adaptation occurring throughout. Curriculum frameworks will vary from place to place, as the process becomes more flexible and responsive to diverse community needs (RSA, NDoE, 1997a).

The cumulative impact of all these elements is to create an environment for unified and successful learning, with few boundaries, barriers or exclusionary constraints hindering further learning. This unified learning is borne in Curriculum 2005 (RSA, NDoE, 1997a), when describing the benefits of an outcomes-based NQF model. These benefits include learning is achieved in formal or informal settings, learners are flexible between the education and working environments, areas of learning are connected allow learners to build on what they learn and easy transfer of recognitions and experiences from one learning situation to another.

The notion of ease of transfer from one learning context to another, implicit in unified learning, is perhaps the most attractive feature of the radical discourse of OBET, but it also represents its most problematic feature. The OBE method argues the content-based teaching method. OBE continues in assistance of allowing students and freeing serious expertise and abilities, to support learners in building their own meanings and knowledge, as well as assisting them to turn into experienced students. The OBE method is a learner-centred one, rather than teacher-centred. Students receive the main place, whereas instructors rehabilitated as administrators and screens in the knowledge practices of the students (Weimer, 2012; Garba, Byabazaire & Busthami, 2015).

OBE evaluations are founded mostly on recurrence knowledge and memory exercise.

The development of a student is measured through the efficiency of the applied abilities. The Curriculum 2005 strategies assist students to make personnel decisions around their own enactment, recognised objective for improvement and advance education” (RSA, NDoE, 1997a)

As limitations of OBET,

 A substantial change in instructive viewpoint from large-scale concerns to a small-scale anxiety.

 A huge administration to describe, distinguish and display principles.

 The OBE insight appears as a system that was established in other nations, and incorrectly rearranged into South Africa.

 All stakeholders (instructors, officers, administrators and students were disordered, and did not appreciate what was expected of them.

 Other complicating factors around OBE and Curriculum 2005 included, too several design structures, lack of specifications, vocabulary that was challenging many learning regions.

 Lack of actual practices, incomes, assets and inadequate delivery of preparation for instructors.

 Knowledge emphases on proficiencies.

(Kraak, 1999; Gould, 2009; Scott, 2013).

The ET transformation method expressly addresses collective disparities among the present academic leaders and its professional substitute. This will remain largely unaltered by a reform project that simply tinkers with its assessment system (Bartlett &

Burton, 2016).