"Education is a process, not a product" wrote Jerome Bruner 30 years ago. Education is a social-reflexive process that must be negotiated in classrooms on a daily basis. No amount of "teacher-proof" curricula, tables of specifications, scope and sequence charts, or lists of objectives can change these facts. The first and foremost aim of teaching and learning is to establish a cordial relationship between teacher and student. The word education comes from the Latin educare, meaning to rear, just as a mother rears her children. Rearing in this sense connotes loving and caring. It is not some form of engineering one in particular directions. It is artistic and creative, because the student thinks and creates meaning. Learning is a form of "meaning making. It is not the goal of teaching to produce results, but to create an experience in which the student can arrive at creative encounters, be drawn out, and make meaning. Curriculum is not a thing to be "covered" by teachers; it is meant to create occasions in which learning takes place.

Can a rational alternative to OBE be developed? Criticizing this model without suggesting a suitable alternative vision for curriculum and instruction is inappropriate. The purpose is not only to critique with a view of inviting experimental testing that would lead to refutation or refinement, but also to posit an alternative "procedural-inquiry" model of education. Thus the critical analysis of OBE is required.

In contend that curriculum and instruction can be effectively organized by a logic other than the "technical-rational planning" of outcomes. Clearly, OBE is a "means-ends" model of curriculum planning, based on what Spady describes as essentially a "design" for learning. According to Spady (1994) following are the basic principles of OBE:

? Student-centric-The approach centres around students and focuses on skill acquisition.

? Clarity in focus -This approach focuses on the specific outcomes of the learners.

London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences

? Design down, deliver up: The objectives and the expected outcomes must be clearly outlined and thereby facilitating the performance of students. ? Exceeding expectations -The self-efficacy of students may be enhanced in order to facilitate their performance.

? Expanded opportunities -Students may be given several chances in order to meet learning objectives and the principle of individual differences (every learner is unique) must be incorporated.

Education (OBE) means Emphasizing on the goal. OBE is a clear shift from teacher centric education to student centric education and it expects students to develop knowledge, competencies, and qualities as and when they finish schools and face the challenges in the external world. OBE is a unique way of designing and delivering instructions in order to achieve intended goals and outcomes.

Another supporter of OBE has argued that in a Learner-centred classroom, the focus is on the outcomes and not on the methods and materials.

Daggett, also a supporter of OBE, Viewed OBE as a "training-instructional" model that views schools as vocational skills dissemination centres and not educational environment.

It may be useful to clarify terms and distinguish among types of "education". Training is concerned with such student performances as making a picture frame, typing a letter on a word processor, kicking a field goal, and so on. Instruction hints at retention of information-for example, knowing the names of the states and their capitals. Finally induction into knowledge results in human understanding. I use "induction into knowledge and understanding" synonymously with "education," for it represents initiation into culture and worthwhile episodes of learning.

The major limitations of OBE are that it is not equally relevant in different planning models for different areas of the curriculum development. For example, OBE may be highly suitable for teaching technical writing skills; but the teaching of art or English literature does not take the form of a step-by-step progression towards outcomes. I would argue that models such as mastery learning or outcomes-based education can function at the levels of training and instruction, but they contradict the idea of education as induction into knowledge. As Stenhouse so eloquently argued, "Education as induction into knowledge is successful to the extent that it makes the behavioral outcomes of the student unpredictable." If our aim is to get pupils to use knowledge creatively, then it is nonsensical to try to define specific behaviours that will result from education. The crucial thing about knowledge is that we chink with it. How can I, as a teacher of English literature, define what a student will have as an outcome from reading Paradise Lost?

Claims that OBE can be applied to the entire curriculum presuppose those objectives are appropriate for all subjects, at all levels of education. Teachers and theorists in the arts and humanities in particular have countered that in these fields the concern is not for the students to reach goals or exit outcomes once and for all, but rather for them to develop standards of judgement, criticism, and taste.

Spady and Marshall couch their arguments for OBE in a "success for all" vision. They contend that OBE rests on three basic premises:

? All students can learn and succeed (but not at the same rate).

? Success in school breeds further success.

? Schools control the conditions of success.

Well, this may be true for some pupils and some subjects. But perhaps this theory needs refinement-or even rejection. The idea of significant, observable educational outcomes and the notion of curriculum as preparation for adult life is not new; the "objectives model" formulated by educators such as Franklin Bobbitt and Ralph Tyler exalted the instructional objective.

The most fundamental criticism against OBE is that it reduces educations, teaching, and learning the forms of human engineering and quasi-scientific planning procedures-procedures that view education as an instrumental means to specified ends. This model, educators may find unacceptable, amounts to molding students through behaviour modification. It resembles the activity analyses of human behaviour discerned by Bobbitt 75 years ago.

To treat knowledge as instrumental is to dismiss a most important possibility: that the justification for education lies within the process itself. The pupil who has been truly educated may lead us into unexplored meanings and outcomes, into unanticipated and unpredictable directions. Imagine a student of Macbeth purchasing a text that includes all the possible interpretations and understanding of that play. If we teachers possessed all the answers, we could publish such a text-surely an absurd scenario. The educated mind will always achieve unique and novel interpretations because knowledge is a tool to think with. To cite the significant outcomes in advance of teaching and learning is absurd.

A second objection to OBE relates to its assumption that knowledge and curriculum content can be sequentially broken down into "micro-outcomes" that eventually lead to more significant "exit outcomes". Such a view of knowledge disregards the epistemology of knowledge. The translation of the deep understanding can never be reduced to behaviours, lists of skills, and observable performances.

Knowledge is an open-ended inquiry, neither a product nor an outcome. Adapting OBE is trivializing knowledge by reducing objective facts.

A related problem is the implication that there are systematic hierarchies of objectives, beginning with lessons and continuing through units, courses, programs, and, indeed, the entire educational career of the student. This linear, step-by-step view is a little too tidy for most learning that goes on in schools. In most of the cases, knowledge and understanding and affect go hand-in-hand. True learning, like excellent teaching, is more arguably developmental and not linear.

Thirdly, while OBE may improve the structure of lessons and units within courses, it does not necessarily improve the quality of curriculum there is serious dearth of empirical evidences suggesting that OBE functions more effectively than a process model. No evidence suggests that this is now pupil's best learn or understand their educational experiences. If 90 per cent of our students attain honours grades in trivial pursuits and experiences, curriculum and learning are not advanced. Moreover, teachers, policy makers, and others with an educational stake do not have a tradition of teaching or planning in this outcomes-directed way.

A fourth objection relates to the tendency for outcomes to be expressed as simple "recall" or "learning" objectives, often because these are easiest to assess. This tendency helps explain the enormous derive toward centralized state assessment procedures. In fact, OBE is characterized by state prescriptions of student outcomes measurably by external testing. This characteristic diminishes the professionalism of teachers by reducing their involvement in research and assessment activities.

Stating outcomes as a comprehensive form of intellectual scaffolding limits inquiry and speculation and gives schools and curriculum framers unwarranted authority and power over knowledge and understanding. One could argue that it is arrogant to suggest that outcomes, as expressed in paper and pencil assessments or examinations, define knowledge of a field, or of a student. More often assessments or examination determine what the student has not learned. Knowledge has more in common with speculation than with mastery. To define education as set of outcomes decided in advance of teaching and learning conflicts with the wonderful, unpredictable voyages of exploration that characterize learning through discovery and inquiry. In addition, many significant outcomes may express themselves only over the long run or in the fact of particular contingencies. For example, I worked on the construction of a cultural studies programme in Northern Ireland that aimed at encouraging "mutual understanding and tolerance in intergroup relations". Such a

As indicated above, the outcome-based approach may be satisfactory for areas of training, demonstration, and low-level skill required in vocational courses; but it clearly breaks down in this sphere where knowledge is used to produce meaning.

In certain areas of the curriculum-those focusing upon knowledge and understanding-an alternative to OBE, which may be called "procedural-inquiry model," is more appropriate. The great advantage of the procedural model is that it rests ultimately on the strength of the teacher. Characteristics of the OBE and procedural-inquiry models are appended in table 1. The procedural-inquiry model starts not with the specification of ends or outcomes, but with the principles of procedure for doing inquiry in a particular field or form of knowledge. It does not presuppose some lockstep, linear progression through a continuum of goals from the level of lesson on through unit, course, programme, and finally, national agenda. It is about teaching through inquiry, and evaluating teaching and learning through teacher classroom research and thereby leads to self-development of a teacher.

The procedural-inquiry model has three parts: (1) a broad aim, (2) principles of procedure, and (3) criteria for assessing student work.

The broad aim of the procedural-inquiry model is to advance understanding of social situations and controversial issues and the human and moral values thrown by these issues. The principles of procedure are as follows:

? Discussion is the best teaching strategy for enhancing understanding. ? The teacher remains "neutral" on moral value issues.

? The teacher adopts a facilitator role and "chairs" the discussion to ensure continuity, summary, and access to evidence.

The following criteria are used for assessing student work:

? The extent to which students to use knowledge and concepts to explore issues. For example, in discussions, the students might be asked to use the concept of role to compare the situations of men and women. A subsequent examination might ask the students to define "role" and use the concept in discussing relations and gender.

? Extent to which a student can understand wide of range of views of an issue of different perspectives associated with a view. For example, a discussion in which students consider many different points of view on marriage might lead to an examination in which students are asked to give to accounts on alternative forms of marriages.

Procedural-inquiry model pose as an alternative to OBE. Procedural-inquiry model, a rational planning model for curriculum which is based on the "principles of procedure" in a particular field or form of knowledge.

By employing the principles of procedure teachers adopt a research, or inquiry, stance towards teaching, which asks for self-evaluation of professional development and judgement. Our curriculum design aims at advanced understanding of key concepts in social studies. It attempts to use key concepts in question and tries to identify the criteria of judging the performance. It also specifies the procedures to be followed by teachers and students in the educational activities. Content may be selected to illustrate the best procedures, concepts, and criteria. In a fundamental sense, the teaching processes and principles become the "objectives" or outcomes. It is thus very much a pedagogical model to test teaching and learning. A style of pedagogy that adopts action research or action inquiry-studied enactment can provide a basis for the teacher to reconceptualise OBE into a theory of processional self-development, because the teacher's ideas are integral to professional and practical competence.

Europeans have called "pastoral care" in curriculum: systematic schemes whereby tutors take on a special role of caring for children and their learning. Another feature of teaching and learning suggests that they cannot be directed at specific objectives. To learn one must be free to learn-not constrained by plans and objectives and various other obstacles. If the student is to have the freedom to learn, then teaching cannot be London Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences constantly directed towards various objectives. The technical OBE stance devalues professional judgement by not focusing upon the process of education but instead highlighting the ends or outcomes.

Other than this "procedural principle, a second argument supports the notion of placing teachers in charge of assessment and evaluation: the teachers-as-inquirer is truly in charge of the classroom and is managing the learners and the learning.

Besides, classrooms are ideal laboratories for doing research that will enhance curriculum and educational theory.

OBE hints at "mastery", when in fact most teachers are learners along with their students. Teachers should not set themselves up as experts but as models of inquiry. Much of the argumentation for OBE has not come from teachers or curriculum designers but from those within the field of assessment and testing, and its lore has been widely adopted by central offices and educational policy makers. Outcomes-based education is also objectionable from an ethical deliberative point of view. It begins with outcomes and results and then goes to extremes to plan and deliver instruction that will mould and change students to become what we want them to be. It is a form of human engineering, not a process of education. There is no question that curriculum must have a goal. If a teacher works toward a long-term aim, such as to promote tolerance among students, and then specifies a set of procedures that work towards achieving that goal, states what content is to be used, elucidates the sort of classroom experience necessary, and builds in evaluation of this experimental process, then she will of course be acting rationally and planning rationally. This process casts the teacher in the role of a researcher by examining practice as problematic and curriculum planning, implementation, and research, taking a close look at the work of the students and teachers as the basis for school and curriculum improvement. OBE suits the technical rationality currently prevailing in the United States and other Western nations whose policies emphasize high-tech culture and the preparation of students to compete in the workplace for global economic warfare. This skills-oriented model views schools as vocational centres producing workers and rests upon the argument that skill requirements on the job change faster than do curriculum and organizational changes in schools. This skills model is not an artistic or creative response to the culture of schooling. It is an industrial model that views students as raw materials. As such, it explains the following statement issued by the U.S. Department of Defence Dependents schools: Based upon an assessment of the future we believe our students will face challenges and opportunities in a world characterized by worldwide economic competition and interdependence which creates ever-increasing requirements for job related performance.

The ultimate aim of education is to produce quality learner who will be able to collaborate effectively. Education must teach valuing things for their own sake not because some outcome is associated with it.