GE curriculum shift moved to 2028
The rollout of the reframed General Education (GE) curriculum will be pushed back to 2028, according to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd).
The decision was announced after education stakeholders and higher education institutions (HEIs) expressed concern about the proposed reduction of 36 GE units to 18 or 21 as well as the integration of some subjects like ethics, philosophy, arts, literature and Philippine history, among others.
In a press briefing on Wednesday night, CHEd Chair Shirley Agrupis said that they will further strengthen consultations with HEIs nationwide to ensure a quality review.
“We came to a decision that there will be no GE implementation across all programs this school year,” she said. “The target of this will be 2028 so that this will give us time to study and then listen more to the different stakeholders.”
She added that the CHEd will also look into potential faculty displacements in addition to meeting the emerging changes in industry demands and the autonomy of schools.
No freedom to expand
“Based on the result of the consultation, their assessment seems to be that [under] the 18 units reframed curriculum, they are like being put into a box and they do not have the freedom to expand,” Agrupis said.
“In fact, there is [the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines], they want it [to be] more flexible because it should not be a one-size fits-all reframed curriculum as each institution has its own institutional direction or expertise,” she added.
Agrupis assured the public of a data-driven approach to gather all necessary input for the finalization of the curriculum.
“We already developed a system for online feedback. And to date, there are about 255 HEIs who have responded already with all those many questions from 17 regions,” she said.
The CHEd has also received 15 position papers from organizations like ACT party list which represents 352 HEIs, other professional organizations, universities and individuals.
Although a pilot rollout is possible before 2028, the CHEd chief said this will still depend on the review to be conducted by the interagency technical working group.
“This is to give us time, especially the technical panel and the Department of Education, to analyze and study the different manifestations well because we understand where they are coming from,” Agrupis said.
Interested parties may still send their position papers and comments to CHEd until June.
Different groups, among them the Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA), Philippine Sociological Society (PSS) and the Division of Humanities of the University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) earlier opposed the planned overhaul of the GE curriculum, saying it could weaken critical thinking, civic formation and the role of the humanities and social sciences in Philippine higher education.
The PPSA, a political science group, warned in a May 6 statement that the proposed curriculum framework risks producing graduates who may possess technical skills but lack the ability to critically examine government policies, historical struggles, corruption, disinformation and democratic issues.
It argued that social sciences and humanities courses are essential because these cultivate political analysis, ethical reasoning, and independent inquiry — skills necessary for responsible citizenship and democratic participation.
The PSS, on the other hand, said that while technological and data-oriented skills are important in an increasingly digital society, these cannot replace interpretive, contextual and ethical knowledge cultivated through the humanities and social sciences.
For its part, the UPV humanities faculty said that General Education should not be treated merely as a “neoliberal construct” designed to make students marketable for labor demands.
Instead, GE courses should help form critical thinkers, ethical decision-makers, culturally aware citizens and socially responsible Filipinos capable of understanding history, identity and democratic life, it stressed. —PNA WITH A REPORT FROM HAZEL P. VILLA
