AN OBSESSION with outcomes is not really centered on students, but instead reduces them to marketable employees.
Faculty members from the UST Department of Philosophy criticized on Feb. 22 the implementation of the outcomes-based education (OBE) curriculum in the country in a research forum at the Buenaventura G. Paredes, O.P. Building.
In his research paper, Department of Philosophy Chairman Paolo Bolaños said the OBE curriculum lacked the “qualitative” character of learning that students need.
“The outcome, which is fixed from the very beginning, is considered as the positive measure of learning. Unfortunately, what is missed is the ‘qualitative’ character of the outcome,” Bolaños told the Varsitarian in an email interview.
OBE is a system of organizing curricula and evaluating students based on measurable outputs produced.
Bolaños said the OBE curriculum was precisely limited by its orientation toward “measurable and predictable” outcomes of learning.
“If you’re obsessed with outcomes, we cannot open our students to new possibilities” he added.
Allan Joseph Maglalang, a philosophy faculty member, said the OBE was not “learner-oriented” as it evaluates students based on outcomes that could be “marketable.”
Maglalang also discussed in his paper the ties of higher education institutions to industries in the country.
“OBE is not learner-oriented but rather a convenient way of determining whether students and graduates are marketable,” Maglalang said.
The papers were delivered during the Research Fortnight 2018, an annual forum organized by the Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities.
