PLATO Media Release 3 June 2006 - for immediate release

"OBE Myths and Facts"

Myth number 1
Minister Ravlich is quoted in today's Western Australian as follows: "Yet she argued that the curriculum - developed on the principles of outcomes-based education - was the way of the future.

Fact number 1
Australia's first attempt at OBE is represented by the Keating Government's national statements and profiles that were developed during the early to mid 90s. Such were the flaws in the national curriculum and the intensity of the public criticism that the meeting of Australian education ministers, held in Perth, July 2, 1993, refused to endorse the OBE based curriculum and each state and territory agreed to go back to the drawing board.

As a result of the Eltis Report in NSW, that could find little evidence in support of OBE or evidence that it had been successfully implemented elsewhere, the NSW Government decided not to implement the OBE based national approach and, instead, developed a curriculum based on a 'syllabus' model. Late last year the head of the NSW Board of Studies, Gordon Stanley, argued that teachers needed a clear and succinct 'road map', represented by a syllabus, of what is to be taught and, especially in primary school, teachers need the right tools to do the job to focus on the basics.

Bruce Wilson, the previous CEO of Australia's leading curriculum body, the Curriculum Corporation, describes OBE as an: "unsatisfactory political and intellectual exercise" (2002, Curriculum Corporation national conference).

Myth number 2
Minister Ravlich is also quoted as saying: "I know it's the right thing to do and I know it's for the right reason, and I can tell you it's a view that is shared by 30 other OECD nations, all of whom are moving towards an outcomes-based education," she said.

Fact number 2
Gita Steiner-Khamsi, an academic at Columbia University and a consultant to the World Bank, argues that OBE has only been adopted by a handful of countries, she states: "During OBE's phase of slow growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s only a few educational systems adopted the reform, notably New Zealand, Australia, England and Wales, Canada and the United States". (South Africa is also attempting to implement OBE.)

OBE was such a failure in America that the expression is no longer in use and all states have moved to what is called a 'standards' approach to curriculum. Compared to OBE, a standards approach: relates to each year level, has a strong academic focus, is succinct and easy to follow, is teacher friendly and has a more traditional approach to teaching and assessment. OBE is the opposite to a standards approach, it is not year level specific, academic content is dumbed down, learning outcomes are wordy and vague, it is not teacher friendly and OBE adopts a new-age approach to teaching and assessment. The father of OBE, the American academic William Spady, acknowledges that OBE failed in the USA.

The adoption of OBE in South Africa, New Zealand, England and Canada has also been open to criticism and public debate. Last year, such were the flaws in the NZ National Certificate of Educational Achievement (very similar to the OBE inspired WACE) that a number of inquires were commissioned as parents, teachers and employers lost faith in the system. Many South African teachers and schools have attacked OBE as it is so difficult and time consuming to implement.

Research associated with the Third International Mathematics and Science Study shows that stronger performing countries in international mathematics and science tests eschew OBE in favour of a 'syllabus' approach to curriculum. Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, for example, give teachers syllabuses that are: year level specific, have strong academic content, are succinct and focused on essential learning, use more testing and are teacher friendly - the opposite to an OBE approach.

Unlike OBE, that adopts educational fads like whole language, where children are taught to look and guess, and fuzzy maths, where mental arithmetic, times tables and rote learning are ignored, a syllabus approach adopts a more structured and teacher directed approach to learning.

Dr Kevin Donnelly will be visiting Perth and, with others both in support and opposed to OBE, will be involved in the following public seminar:

"OBE: Dumbed-down and Politically Correct"

Free Event for 6:30pm - 8:00pm, Tuesday, 20 June 2006 Sciences Lecture Theatre, University of Western Australia, Crawley

For further details, contact:

Dr Kevin Donnelly
(M) 0413 311 271
Email:kevind@netspace.net.au

Greg Williams
President PLATOWA INC.
http://www.platowa.com/