MANILA – The Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) proposal to reduce the General Education (GE) units did not sit well with faculty members. Aside from further deteriorating the quality of higher education in the Philippines, they stressed that thousands of teachers could lose their jobs.

On May 5, CHED held a public hearing on the Proposed Policies, Standards, and Guidelines for the Reframed General Education Curriculum which were attended by faculty members. The commission proposed to reduce the current 36 units of GE courses to 18 to address the demands of the job market.

Prof. Carl Marc Ramota, ACT vice chairperson and former University of the Philippines (UP) Faculty Regent, said that this plan could lead to “the wholesale gutting of the Philippine university system.”

Courses in the humanities, social science and ethics are reportedly affected by the plan to reduce the number of GE units.

Ramota said that eliminating core GE courses compromises critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and civic engagement. “Ultimately, this undermines the university’s mission and the very essence of holistic education.”

He said that the said proposal is “another neoliberal scheme that undermines institutional autonomy and academic freedom,” adding that “the proposal aims to reduce universities to mere labor production and placement agencies.”

At the hybrid public hearing, CHED said that the GE courses are not removed as they are just “reframed.”

“We have 15 units core and mandated GE which respond to national competencies and legal mandates. We also have three units of institutional GE where disciplinary depth, institutional identity, and mission-specific emphasis are. Instead of prescribing one-size-fits-all course titles, Ched is saying, design GE in ways that meaningfully realize these national outcomes.That is a move from prescription to accountability,” said Dr. Jonathan Macayan, co-chair of the CHED’s Technical Panel for General Education.

UP Los Baños Prof. Antonio Contreras meanwhile said that the proposal encroaches on academic freedom. He said that academic freedom is guaranteed under the 1987 Constitution’s Article 14, Section 5.2. “Universities have the right to determine what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may teach. And the draft PSG intrudes into all three. It fixes 18 GE units and it prescribes 15 of them through specific courses from professional communication, global trends, data and ethics, Rizal, and labor education. What remains is a token three-unit space for institutional identity. This is not flexibility, this is centralization.”

He questioned CHED’s authority to ”reframe” arts and social science subjects, saying that academic freedom belongs to universities, not regulators.

The Philippine Sociological Society in its statement expressed concern over the planned reduction of GE units. The group stressed that technological skills and data competencies are important, “but they cannot substitute for the interpretive, ethical, and contextual knowledge cultivated by the social sciences and humanities.”

“We believe that a genuinely future-ready Filipino graduate must not only operate the tools provided by any specific discipline, but can also grasp the complex social world in which these tools are embedded. The current GE revision risks privileging technical utility at the expense of democratic citizenship, cultural rootedness, and social imagination,” they added.

The faculty of the UP Department of History expressed its condemnation over the proposal. They said that it “did not undergo a humane and meaningful consultation process, abandons the spirit of Republic Act No. 1425 or the Rizal Law, and shows no regard for the condition and future of teachers in the social sciences and humanities.”

“The plan to merge the History course and the Rizal course is not only a clear devaluation of the discipline of History but also a direct attempt to remove the space for the study of History in higher education,’ the UP Department of History said in Filipino.

The group found unacceptable the argument that History can be removed in college as it is already taught in Senior High School (SHS) through the course Pag-aaral ng Kasaysayan at Lipunang Pilipino (PKLP).

Ramota said that the proposed GE cuts are part of a neoliberal approach to education that prioritizes efficiency, cost-cutting, and marketable skills over universities’ broader mission of fostering critical inquiry. “This approach will undermine the university’s role as a hub for social critique, which is crucial in light of widespread corruption, rampant human rights violations, and the decline of democracy.”

Ramota called on university unions, faculty associations, and professional organizations to reject the proposal and protect the interests of future generations of Filipinos. (DAA)

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