General education and the struggle between the state and intellectuals

There is an ongoing debate about the latest experiment being forced on the public by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd). Academics and educational stakeholders are up in arms over CHEd’s proposal to further reduce the number of general education (GE) subjects. This, in my view, is not an accident but designed by the establishment to further weaken the already vulnerable condition of arts and humanities.

The aim of this latest maneuver is not to advance the public interest but to hasten the continuous erosion of public reason, to fast-track the infusion into the market of new workers, and to give in to the demands of the corporate elite and globalization based on principles of neoliberalism.

The plan is to destroy the intellectual, democratic, and sacred place of academia, so that the products that may be produced by our academic institutions based on the imposition of CHEd—which will lead to the eradication of the philosophy and the social sciences—will not be human beings who have the capacity to think for themselves, to question, and to critique. This is against public interest and the general welfare of the people. In the words of Dr. Zosimo Lee of the Department of Philosophy of the University of the Philippines: Ultimately, who is education for? The learners, the state, the employers, the markets, religion, and the welfare of society as a whole? While there is no single answer, the main focus of who or what is the ultimate beneficiary of quality education determines what is going to be the focus of that education. Societies design their education systems on the basis of what or who the ultimate beneficiaries will be.

The same analysis jibes with the stand of University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum: “education is not for the purpose of making a profit; it is for the purpose of transforming the human being into a citizen who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements.” A person who can “think for themselves and criticize tradition” is a direct threat to any authority that relies on blind obedience. That is the very reason why dictators, authoritarians, and despotic leaders have no concern whatsoever with history, philosophy, the arts, literature, cultural studies, and the whole gamut of the social sciences and humanities in general—capacities that are crucial to democratic public goods and our duty to interrogate power.

Professor Henry Giroux in ”The Myth of the Apolitical University: Education, Power and the Lie of Neutrality,” (2026) stated that higher education matters because it holds the promise of cultivating historical consciousness, ethical reasoning, and critical literacy. These capacities are crucial democratic public goods, equipping students not simply to enter markets, but also to interrogate power. More importantly, they equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to be informed and active citizens.

Critics who lament higher education’s embrace of advocacy often miss the deeper question: Advocacy for what? If it defends civil rights, democratic memory, and human dignity, then calling it contamination misunderstands higher education’s democratic vocation.

Philosophy, critical pedagogy, the arts, music, and humanities are not mere subjects. They are necessary tools the youth need not only to learn and grow as individuals but also to cultivate what is intrinsically human. To reduce—or to ultimately eliminate—GE subjects is to demolish the very elements that make us human.

Jose Mario D. De Vega,
Philippine Normal University