Outcomes versus Outputs

 One of the common grouse among serious educators today, is the rampant "factory" model of education, that aims not to empower the student to think and act independently, but to create a homogenised pool of skilled labour, ready for consumption by industry. 

Despite several leading educators being critical of such an approach to education, the factory model is still very strong, and is the de facto model of formal education. One of the most vocal voices against such a paradigm is the Harvard professor Todd Rose. (Actually a lot of educators are against such a model-- but Professor Rose is from an Ivy League university, so our hope is to latch on to his name to get someone to listen to what we're saying 😅). He runs a research program on the science of "individuality" where each individual is modelled as a complex dynamic system, rather than an "averagian" model that is characteristic of the factory. This TED talk here, explains the motivations behind the science of individuality: 

While these developments are underway, there is yet another movement in education that aims to model educational processes based on "outcomes." This is called Outcomes Based Education (OBE), and any resemblance to a certain empire is purely coincidental. 

OBE has been adopted by several countries, India included, which has resulted in a vastly increased bureaucracy around how courses should be specified, taught, assessed, etc.  The entire system of learning now revolves around assessments, and there is even a slogan saying, "Assessments drive learning." And to think, all along, I've tried hard to never let assessments come in the way of my learning. 

The entire activity around OBE is centred around what visible outcomes the students can produce. And outcomes are equated to exam performance. When specifying expected outcomes for a course in the course description, teachers were (until recently) forbidden to say anything about students needing to "understand" anything in the course. Because understanding isn't "visible"-- only what is visible, matters, and nothing else. Kind of, reminds me of John Searle's Chinese Room Argument about what constitutes intelligence. A clerk who doesn't speak Chinese, sitting in a Chinese office, and strictly following a set of rules about how to answer questions, appears to the outside world to be understanding Chinese. But all that the clerk is doing is to follow well-defined rules to produce some visible "outcomes." 

OBE seems to be the factory model on steroids. Individual agency, empowerment, awareness, etc. doesn't matter. Only what the individual can produce, matters. 

This is all the more strange, because, OBE itself says: 

There is no single specified style of teaching or assessment in OBE; instead, classes, opportunities, and assessments should all help students achieve the specified outcomes. The role of the faculty adapts into instructor, trainer, facilitator, and/or mentor based on the outcomes targeted.

Something seems to be amiss in the way OBE is implemented.

 In my opinion, OBE, at least the way it is being implemented in India, seems to be confusing between "outcomes" and "outputs." The idea of outcomes is not unique to education. It has been used in management theory for much longer. And there are several articles written, explaining outcomes versus outputs. 

Outcomes pertain to how the collective system state changes as a result of some activity. The change in the systemic state may or may not be "visible" directly-- but can be inferred by observing certain outputs or evidence. And while individuals in a system produce outputs, the outcome is about the system as a whole, and the change in its state.

Let us take an example. Assume that a new car factory has been set up in a state, which adopts the latest state-of-the-art manufacturing systems. As a result, it produces a lot of cars. This is the output of the activity. The outcome of this output is that-- in the larger system, car prices may go down, more people may start using cars, there will be more demand for fuel, more garages may come up, and ecosystem like motels, drive-ins, etc. may start emerging. And so on. 

The outcome is about the system-- and about what systemic changes (operational, structural, latent, etc. changes) are brought about by the individual outputs that are visible. 

Outcomes are much more comprehensive, much more deeper, and manifest over the longer term-- in comparison to the immediate outputs. In order to see outcomes, we need to have an idea of what was the state of the system before our intervention, and how did it change subsequent to our intervention. 

To understand what outcomes mean in an educational setting, consider this analogy between "irrigation" and "harvesting."

Consider a barren area, where we are nurturing a wide variety of plants. We irrigate them, provide them with soil, air, manure, etc. and each plant goes on to become a tree and produce its own outputs. If each plant were different we end up in a diversity of outputs for the same kind of nurture provided. 

The outcome of such an activity is that, we end up in a vibrant ecosystem, where outputs from one tree becomes inputs for the other, or may in some sense augment one another, resulting in a rich, self-sustaining ecosystem. 

Education is supposed to be somewhat like that. The outcome of education is supposed to be the creation of an interdependent, harmonious, empowered and aware population, that can take on problems faced by the society, and provide credible solutions. 

But that is not what is happening today. Graduates from our educational institutions are even more insecure after their education than before. When placements start, everything else takes a back seat. Hardly anyone seems to be looking around and asking how can we solve this problem-- or that problem. No one wants to solve problems-- they only want salaries-- not even jobs. In fact, I'd even seen this cheeky slogan in the email signature of a student once: "All along I thought I wanted a job, but what I really wanted was a salary." 

The reason for this state of affairs is that, education today, is modelled more as a "harvesting" activity, rather than an "irrigation" activity. 

In harvesting, we are interested only in specific outputs, and the quality of the outputs. We evaluate each plant based on the output it provides, and inject them with boosters to increase their output. We discard "bad" plants which don't provide the output we desire, or the quality of the output we desire. 

The outcome of such an activity is that the ecosystem is greatly denuded because of the narrow focus of our intervention. There is no diversity of outputs to supplement, complement and augment one another. Because natural interdependencies are broken, the system depends more and more on our intervention. The soil loses its potency over time, insects and other parasites start thriving, and we will need more and more potent toxins just to keep our outputs coming. 

Currently, the way OBE specifies and controls pedagogic activity, it resembles more of a harvesting process, rather than an irrigation process. 

Educational outcomes can only be seen over the long term. The investment we make over several years, in promoting original thought and problem-solving skills, will only produce outcomes after a decade or so. These outcomes need not be in the form of Nobel prizes or Olympic medals (but may also be), but in the form of greater ownership from the population towards our society and country, greater involvement in its activities, better work practices, greater acceptance of other subcultures, etc. Nobel prizes and Olympic medals resulting as one of the outcomes of our society developing a scientific temper and a sporting culture is one thing. But targeting them as intended outputs loses the entire picture. If we make Nobel prizes and Olympic medals as our intended outputs (and call them outcomes), we will be creating a harvesting system that can make whatever supporting ecosystem we have, collapse under its own weight. 

Of course, institutions are jittery about their survival, and want measurable outputs to pitch for funds and support and ensure their survival. This is a very valid concern. But we risk a much greater collapse, if we remain focused on specific outputs and remain impervious to the larger outcomes. We need better models to understand how to recognise outcomes and design for outcomes, rather than for outputs.