Outcomes Based Education - The flawed option

The following is an extract of an article written by Kevin Donnelly and a fairly accurate summation of the failure of outcomes based education (OBE).
"As stated in the Curriculum Council’s Curriculum Framework document, published in 1998, Western Australia’s school curriculum is based on an outcomes-based approach. Since the late 90s, OBE has been implemented during the compulsory years (K-10) and now the intention is to extend it to years 11 and 12.
The above document defines OBE as: “… identifying what students should achieve and focusing on ensuring that they do achieve. It means shifting away from an emphasis on what is taught and how and when, to an emphasis on what is actually learnt by each student.”
While, in theory, OBE might sound fine, in practice, both in Australia and overseas, it has proven to be a dismal failure and those countries, such as the USA, that have experimented with OBE have forsaken it in favour of more academic and rigorous alternatives.
Bruce Wilson, the recently retired CEO of Australia’s Curriculum Corporation, freely admits that Australia’s adoption of OBE is inherently flawed and that it represents, in his words, an “unsatisfactory political and intellectual exercise”.
The flaws and weaknesses of an OBE approach are manifold. Firstly, unlike syllabus documents that give teachers a clear and succinct road map of what is to be taught at the start of the year, OBE documents are inefficient, cumbersome and impossible to implement in the classroom.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3431