UNESCO 2019; UNICEF 2019).
OBE‐based education does not only empower the students or learners in developing the academic quality but strengthens a set of employability skills (Franco et al. 2019) in them. This set of skills helps develop competence in learners that enables further excellence. The ultimate goal of education is to achieve or to strive toward excellence, leading to an improvement in quality in life. As we know, OBE is envisaged to ensure the actual SLOs and should be reflected in activities, performance, acts, behavior, and attitude of the students when placed in industries or workplace. Generally, SLOs are articulated or formulated by keeping in mind the following important components of higher education organizations:
Vision and mission of the university or organization.
Program educational objectives (PEOs).
Program outcomes (POs) (will be associated with graduate attributes).
Course outcomes (COs) (will have course objectives as well).
Every organization has its specific vision and mission statements (Coughlan 2011; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019) along with some short range goals (SRGs) and long range goals (LRGs) (Swaminathan and Kesavan 2016; Hall and Tandon 2017; UN and Australian Government 2018; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019). These goals, mission, and vision statements play a most significant role in formulating PEOs and POs; of course, POs (García Reyes 2013; UNESCO 2016; United Nations Development Programme 2017) are just expected outcomes which need to be truly validated at the end of the program if the POs are mapped with set PEOs. This requires an important process used in higher education and its transformation (Sinha 2021) that maps the relevance and the extent to which POs are actually seen in the students. The PEOs are major objective statements of specific programs and thus each program in a university department will have its own PEOs that are written not as simple statements but are formulated taking a number of stakeholders into consideration. The formulation of PEOs and POs involves a strong interaction and network with following stakeholders:
Relevant industries
Alumni
Institutes/universities practicing research par excellence
Parents
Employers
Students and others
This list of stakeholders (Franco et al. 2019; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019) plays a large role in articulating PEOs and POs because the expectations and dreams of each of the stakeholders are taken into consideration. Each program offers a number of courses and thus COs will be associated with all the courses offered (Coughlan 2011), and also the course educational objectives (CEOs). Before mapping happens between POs and PEOs, the same process needs to be performed to see whether envisaged COs are in congruence with the CEOs. In addition, the COs will be a subset of the POs and thus achieving or attaining a particular CO means contributing something toward any one of the POs. Vision and mission statements are also devised for departments and can be derived or formulated by keeping in mind the vision and mission statements of the overall organization. The mapping of SLOs with PEOs is explained in Section 3.2 with examples of practices that have been adopted to actually measure the attainment of SLOs in the students.
The CO can be expressed as: CO = {CO1, CO2, CO3, CO4, CO5, CO6, CO7,…} where {CO1, CO2, CO3, CO4, CO5, CO6, CO7,…} are, respectively, COs of course 1, course 2, course 3, and so on. Similarly, we can also write the PO as a sum or union of the POs of various programs. In addition, the PO is attributed to a number of COs. There are multiple COs because of the number of courses offered in the program, each with specific objectives and learning outcomes. The SLO are used to assess the impact of teaching learning and bringing about change in learners or students.
3.1.1 Significance of OBE
In the last decade, competition among the young has become tough in the job market and candidates can perform badly, even if they are employed in a good workplace. This happens because they do not possess a set of appropriate skills. A candidate or graduate can get employed or receive a job offer, that might be based on a strong academic background leading to the first impression of them during the interview as being satisfactory; however, this does not mean that the candidate is competent. This is a gray area to which most academic organizations do not pay attention, concentrating more on strengthening academic performance. The true significance of the OBE framework lies in ensuring a holistic view of studies; it not only requires good academic performance but a set of skills as well. The most important set of graduate skills needed to ensure that the SLOs are measurable, are:
1 Strong written and verbal communication (Coughlan 2011; Hall and Tandon 2017; TWI2050 – The World in 2050 2018): This is needed to present the knowledge acquired or product developed. Communication plays a significant role in the overall growth of a candidate and thus must be assessed carefully during a student's study.
2 Critical and conceptual thinking (Franco et al. 2019; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019): When students are exposed to the teaching learning process (TLP) of observable and assessable systems, then the development of critical thinking is inevitable. The ways students learn and think out of the box in a different manner, determine their ability to think critically.
3 Fundamental knowledge (Franco et al. 2019; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019; UNICEF 2019): Procedural study with a focus on understanding rather than rote learning, helps develop conceptual or fundamental knowledge of a subject.
4 Self‐initiative for learning and knowledge upgrades (Coughlan 2011; Franco et al. 2019; UNESCO 2019). This can be developed by engaging students in suitable activities.
5 Strong motivation, teamwork and integrity (TWI2050 – The World in 2050 2018):
6 Problem‐/project‐based learning approach: Students should be given the opportunity to handle tasks individually or in a group, with certain objectives to be achieved and, of course, under the supervision of a teacher.
7 Values in professional and personal life: The ultimate aim of education is to improve the quality of life of self and others in society, and thus values have the same importance as academic aptitude does. Values can also be developed through a number of societal and technosocietal events aimed at improving the societal life.
8 Positive attitude (United Nations Development Programme 2017): Aptitude alone does not work, but aptitude combined with a positive attitude assists someone to attain growth. A greater height in sustainable growth can be achieved with a positive attitude in the workers. A positive attitude can also be learned during studies with the help of a number of co‐curricular and extracurricular activities.
9 Research‐based approach (Coughlan 2011; Wright 2014; UNESCO 2016; Hall and Tandon 2017; TWI2050 – The World in 2050 2018; Franco et al. 2019): Low‐level research‐centric tasks need to be assigned so that the students can understand the role of research and its importance in improving the quality of life through various advances in science and technology.
10 Ability to think outside the box, and much more (UNESCO 2019).
This list is not limited and there might be more skills that would empower the students. The OBE framework can include schemes for direct and indirect assessment, measurable outcomes, observable changes in the students, and positive ripples in the learners. The major salient points related to the importance of OBE are:
It is a system of education in which student outcomes need to be seriously evaluated.
The evaluation of the SLOs indicates the competence of the students or learners.
The outcomes help students as well as employers in choosing the appropriate positions.
The system requires the active and considerable participation of learners and teachers.
OBE provides a framework where one can truly assess the skill development, growth, and overall progress of students in any academic