process versus outcomes

This is a bit sad, though not unexpexcted. A new school cirriculum will focus on the process of learning, rather than content. Apparently its all part of the "outcome-based approach" of skills, rather than knowledge, except the outcome is how well you know the process not whether you know the answer. That's a bit like going on your OE, not knowing where London is but as long as you know how to catch a flight there then that's OK - you have your outcome.

Imagine if policy analysts made policy like this, changing the goalposts on outcomes to make them more woolly - focusing on the process and let the outcomes work out for themselves. Oh, that's right they do. Equal Employment Opportunities is the process they use to achieve equity in the workplace. They call it procedural equalty because it his to do with process. Substantive equality is to do with equity. Education appears to be going the same way. No need to learn how to get from A to B by reading a map - as long as you know the process of asking someone who can tell you then you`ll get where you want to go.

Mary Chamberlain, overseeing the project for the Education Ministry, says "If (students) don't know how to initiate a conversation or ask for help, that's not OK".

Next thing they`ll be offering BAs in "asking for help" and analysing the Beatle's song "Help" as the content for a first year assignment. We`ll really need help then...