The objective of this study is to identify the issues affiliated institutions faced during the effective implementation of outcome-based education (OBE). The literature from both empirical and conceptual papers has been taken in order to derive out the challenges before and during the implementation phase of OBE. Evident gaps in the initial phase of implementation were identified. Affiliated institutions faced many challenges in the way of OBE implementation. Lack of resources and inability to adopt change have become major hurdles on the way to OBE implementation. The present study is conducted on Affiliated Management Institute. The same can be replicated for other disciplines as well. The structured projected in the study will guide the management institutions in elevating their quality level.
TopIntroduction
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolutionary change, published in 1859 has given Herbert Spencer the term “survival of the fittest”. The same is applicable to the higher education institutions in India as they struggle to develop effective model of quality assurance and continuous improvement. Accreditation is one such avenue that provides benchmark to ensure uniformity. Keeping in view the need of the hour AICTE (All India Council of Technical Education) in 1987 has established NBA (National Board of Accreditation). NBA works as an autonomous body since 2010 with an agenda to elevate higher education. NBA is based on the guidelines of ABET accreditation process followed in USA and has become mandatory to be part of Washington accord. The recent developments in NBA accreditation process are “outcome based education (OBE)”. Outcome-based education (OBE) is an approach to education supported by exit learning outcome (LO) that a student should exhibition at the course completion (Davis, 2003). The outcomes include knowledge, skills and attitude transformation of any student. It is also associated with knowledge management attitude & IT supports given at institutional level (Kumar & Gupta, 2019), leadership style at educational institute (Kumar, Gupta & Mishra, 2020) and students own emotional intelligence helps in making decisions (Gupta, & Kumar, 2019) of their career choices. In contrary, the traditional education systems were confined to giving away only degrees. OBE acts as a benchmark to measure students’ actual performance over a period of time. It helps to derive out the fact to what extent the concept is imbibed by the student and what is the scope of improvement. Therefore, the teaching plan and assessment tools are assiduously designed to strengthen the desired learning outcome. There is a direct link between the teaching plans, assessment tools and student’s effective delivery at the end of the course and that can be measured with appropriate tools. Here, any gap between these three will eventually defeat the purpose of outcome-based education.
Education underwent several stages of growth, including competency-based education, criterion-referenced learning, and mastery learning, before the paradigm shift toward OBE was finally achieved. OBE was also a result of the movement toward financing, planning, and evaluating education according to results. Different scholars have characterized OBE in different ways, reflecting this curiosity. Spady (1994) defines OBE as “clearly focusing and organizing everything in an educational system around what is essential for all students to be able to do successfully at the end of their learning experiences”. This demonstrates how OBE definitely departs from the conventional notion of academia or teaching choosing what to teach and emphasizing what students will be able to do after completing a programme. These contrasting but essentially congruent points of view highlight the fact that OBE assumes that students get the knowledge and abilities necessary in real-world, practical business scenarios. Businesses are strongly encouraged to adapt due to the fundamental changes in the business environment, including globalization, an increase in company complexity, shifting demographic trends, and developing technology. The marketization of higher education, declining public funding, and other variables that spark changes in the business environment have compelled higher education institutions to adopt creative and entrepreneurial approaches.
Business schools are not exempt from these changes and undergo disruption in a similar way to other industries, thus they too must modify their educational practices to match the needs of the business world by providing applicable knowledge, skills, and research for the stakeholders they serve. It is also noteworthy that creating awareness through social media (Tyagi, Aggarwal, & Kumar, 2019; Mishra, Sharma, & Kumar, 2023; Pooja, & Kumar, 2021), giving emphasis on individual personality traits (Kumar, Kumar & Lochab, 2022) through OBE and engaging common citizen concerns (Gupta, Mishra & Kumar, 2021) in academic curriculum will help to achieve desired outcome.