THE Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) are eyeing the integration of at least three general education (GE) subjects from the college curriculum to Senior High School (SHS) to avoid redundancy and shorten the college program duration by at least one semester.
DepEd assistant secretary Janir Datukan told the hearing of the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture chaired by Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo that the three courses – art appreciation, contemporary world and ethics – can be added to the existing GE units which are already integrated in the SHS curriculum.
The subjects are worth three units each.
“The DepEd has mapped it out and I have also reviewed and found out that these are included in subjects taken by Grades 7 to 12. We don’t want a duplication. So, when we add them up, there will be 24 units less in college, which is already equivalent to one semester,” Datukan said.
Dr. Edizon Fermin, chairperson of the CHED’s technical panel for teacher education, pointed out thar there is an “imbalance” in the current higher education curriculum, of which GE comprises 42 percent of the credit structure.
“So, lumalabas (na) lahat ng graduates natin ng higher ed ay minor in GE. Kasi po umulit ‘yung configuration ng exit courses natin in the key disciplines kahit na may college readiness standards (So it means that all higher ed graduates are already GE minors. It’s because of the duplication of the configuration of exit courses in the key disciplines even if we already have college readiness standards),” Fermin said.
Fermin said that transferring or “downloading” some of these GE subjects to the SHS curriculum could reduce the duration of the program and help students graduate sooner.
Romulo cited the result of the research of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) that Philippine college programs exceed international norms.
“There’s a PIDS study, and it said that nung nagbawas ng GE subjects, ang ginawa naman ng CHED technical panels, nag-add (The PIDS study said that when GE subjects were reduced, CHED technical panels added new ones). But the thing is, we went over and beyond, ang daming dinagdag, ang dami ring nahirapang makatapos (so many subjects were added and many found it hard to graduate),” he said.
According to the DepEd’s presentation to the panel, art appreciation in college is already covered by the arts subject in the SHS curriculum, while contemporary world can be included in Araling Panlipunan, and ethics is already a topic under the Good Manners and Right Conduct and Values Education.
The current curriculum has two years for senior high school, Grades 11 and 12.
Earlier, the DepEd said it will pilot test a strengthened SHS Program in 727 schools this coming school year. It said the revised program will have fewer lessons and learning tracks.
Under the pilot rollout, the DepEd said the core subjects will be trimmed down to five proposed core subjects — effective communication, life skills, general mathematics, general science, and Pag-aaral ng Kasaysayan at Lipunang Pilipino — from the current 15.
In addition to core courses, DepEd also plans to offer a menu of elective subjects tailored to the particular academic or career interests of students to ensure that they will be ready for both college and employment.
Outgoing Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, a former economics professor at the University of the Philippines, raised concerns abut the plan, noting that the curriculum will be piloted in Academic Year 2025–2026.
Quimbo cited as an example a STEM cluster student who she said may avoid trigonometry under the new curriculum. But under the current set up, she pointed out that trigonometry is mandatory “so, when I reach college, I can skip trigonometry and proceed to a higher Math (subject).”
“With the new curriculum, you may actually avoid all the Math subjects in STEM and just choose science electives. In that situation, colleges might have to revert to the pre-K-12 curriculum. To begin with, they (colleges) have already changed their curriculum keeping in mind that the SHS curriculum already has fixed subjects which can substitute for general education subjects in college,” she said.
Datukan said DepEd is strengthening its guidance counseling program to avoid the situation where a student can just take whatever subject he or she prefers, but Quimbo said guidance counselors can only recommend since they cannot force students to enroll in subjects.
