The quite specified idea that comes forth is the nature of education, institutional education for sure, which tends to go through changes over the years. The motto of an educational institution is to impart, which it tends to give out, track the progress, and speculate the result it produces at the ultimate stage of completion of the institutional orientation. Hence, the operational definition of education tends to underscore the 'pragmatic aspect' rather than the 'philosophic orientation' of the past. The bottom line isthat the sustainability of education aims to corroboratethe pragmatism of institutional learning. If the learnerscannot put to use their earned knowledge, the educational perspective misses out on the determination of the learning outcomes of the courses.
In addition, the liaison between the 'outcome-based curriculum'and the 'sustainable education' lines up together. The idea of life-long learning gains traction when a learner can obtain their livelihood by applying their learned knowledge.Then, it ensures the sustainability of education as the learners get along withthe possibility of applying their learning ona life-long basis. The summary of the argument states that the courses of the educational institutions need to be designed in the fashion of applicability of the knowledge practically. For instance, in the era of Information technology, open information systems claim that a learner has sound knowledge of the technological handling expertise along with expertise in a global language. Hence, the inclusion of ICT and global language learning claims to be inevitable for learning when the question of the pragmatic value of institutional learning demands to be solved.
The practical sense asserts that some sectors gain momentum for a certain period of time, whereas others lose their vibes. The mushrooming rise of commercial institutions two decades back and their sudden collapse are the visible cues of our defense for the assertion. This may be branded as volatility in educational terrain thoughit should not be criticized as awaste of public funds for concrete reasons. No one could have imagined how educational institutions would be victimized in the 2019-20 sessions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Online learning emerged as the quick solution to the problem. Thus, the idea of blended learning hasturned out practicable. Consequently, the transformation of the digital classroom into an internet-induced open-source classroom claims time-befitting privileges.
Again, the outcome-based curriculum appears distinctive in the view of adaptability of courses with the impending market demands. The outcome-based curriculum tends to fix the expectation of the curriculum from the learners, and the activities which the learners tend to perform. The straight line is that the outcome-based curriculum is objective-driven, and it claims that the learners can perform to display whether the objectives are attained in the classroom scenario. Principally, an outcome-based curriculum is credited to demand that a learner can write good poetry if he is to learn the quality of a good poet and that of good poetry. This demand from the curriculum can never be redundant. A learner is not a blind receptor. He is an active participant. Hence, he needs to reach the preformation indicator to get promoted or certified.
Again, this outcome-based education has no fixed model. Benjamin Bloom, who is credited with having coined the term, 'Outcome-based education', proposed 'content-specific outcomes' in the 1960s. Here, he proposed the presentation of lessons by parts and verification of the level of mastery of the students on that specific part before moving to the next part. Bloom proposed it as a 'Mastery Learning', which aimed to be a teaching method. Now, the matter of concern is to implement this teaching method as a theory of learning.
The foremost critical issue that emerges through this theorization is that every subject knowledge calls for various manners and durations of accomplishment. Hence, a common grading criteria may not be applicable to all. Still, every community has its core values and ethical aspects, which the people cannot devalue being the community representatives. For example, the teaching of theology, and the philosophical aspect of their living explain the aesthetic aspect of their existence. A country cannot neglect them to integrate into the national curriculum. As a result, the format of an outcome-based curriculum, which tends to measure education with a balance of practicality and pragmatism, should be redesigned in countries like ours.
Again, the curriculum can measure a learner's outcomes only within the educational arena. However, a learner needs to display his performance outside of the educational arena to confirm his learning as sustainable and life-long expertise. However, there remains a big gap in the case of collaboration between educational and business institutions. We lack liaison between them. Hence, it is difficult to track the performers to justify whether they can apply or have scope enough to utilize their learned skills in the job, or earning-generating sectors. Thus, doubt remains about whether they can have ample scope to apply their skills in the fields, and whether they are involved in life-long learning. We lack the framework to track them down. Hence, the nation may remain deprived of the consolidated results of practicality about institutional learning due to the unavailability of the national framework.
Then, we lack consolidated data regarding the necessary quantity of human resources and the number of expectant candidates for a certain period of time. Consequently, there prevails an imbalance between demand and supply. Due to this supply-demand imbalance, the graduates tend to switch to the sectors as per availability. Hence, the curriculum can never ensure that the learners will enlighten the job sector with their acquired skills. Thus, we have cause to express doubt regarding the motivation of the learners to acquire the destined level of performance skills in educational institutions. The educational sector, for example, experienced a massive boom in computer science graduates in the 1990s. Now, it lacks vibrancy due to the scarcity of lucrative job sectors in comparison to the number of graduates. Most of the graduates are aiming to settle in software companies with so little wages.
However, the countries, that have already approved outcome-based curricula, record positive results in the case of learners' increasing rate of scores more than the traditional curriculum. Our educational scenario aspires to embrace this today or tomorrow. But, the first thing is to measure the perspective of demand-supply so that the learners can apply their achieved skills practically. It must be ensured that our learners are enrolled in the courses of their choice not by chance. Learners will be motivated to acquire skills if they can carry their expertise to the job sectors. Ultimately, education will claim sustainability and life-long training, which is envisioned in the outcome-based curriculum when lots of adjustments take place.
The writer is BCS Cadre (General Education) & Editorial Member,International Journal of Recent Innovations in Academic Research
