Relevance of Competency Based Education for Architectural Education in India

A holistic architectural education is the culmination of learning knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, which eventually reflects in the quality of graduates. Even though different schools of thought have made various kinds of qualitative contributions towards the evolution of architectural education in India, it has largely been dominated by the quantitative and technical aspects of its regulating framework. Architects engage with the demanding contradictions between responsibilities of an ethical nature, the dynamic challenges of practice, and the intricacies of architectural imagination. The aesthetical and imaginative foundations of the field make it incumbent upon the architects to possess a balance of ecumenical proficiencies for accountability and personalization. The purpose of the study is to identify relevant attributes of Competency Based Education (CBE) that can be adopted for architectural education in India.

This research follows a narrative review approach and a descriptive-analytic method to broadly understand the attributes of CBE and its potential relevance to architectural education in India. 323 articles were searched on various search strings based on their relevance to the inquiry. 76 documents written in English language were included and appraised through the Scale of the Assessment for Narrative Review Articles (SANRA) tool to avoid any risk of bias. The PRISMA 2020 checklist and flow diagram has been used to report the findings of this narrative review.

The study identifies eight critical parameters of CBE with respect to its definitions, origins, transitions, regulatory environment, characteristics, approaches and implications on teaching-learning, frameworks and models of assessment; and challenges, which makes a case for the relevance of CBE for architectural education in India, which hasn't been explored yet.

The broader expectations of 'being competent' can be addressed through a conscious adoption of strategies of relevant attributes of CBE which can encourage building attitudes and temperament for life-long learning.