Education is (in)formative
If historians of the future take current social media posts as the primary sources that represent our times, Monday, May 11, 2026, will go down in history for a mix of the comic and the tragic. From “the flight of the bumble bee” in the Senate stairwell to the vote in the session hall that changed Senate leadership, the posts, pics, reels, and memes that entertain and inform us today will be tomorrow’s history. I now regret missing the Senate discussion on the proposed drastic reduction in the college general education (GE) curriculum last Monday. While the matter was buried by events, I missed a front row seat to history.
Timely pushback from teachers and academics forced the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) to hold back on the plan to reduce GE units from 36 to 18, and they postponed the “pilot” program from this year to the next. The seriousness of the issue caused the four rival historical associations to unite and issue a joint statement opposing the scrapping of the three-unit Readings in Philippine History (RIPH), and merging it with the three-unit Rizal course, which CHEd cannot touch because it is mandated by law. I believe the heat should be sustained by all teachers and supporters of history, philosophy, and the humanities till CHEd drops the idea.
Full disclosure, I am an interested party, having taught courses on Rizal and Philippine history for four decades now. My pitch goes beyond retention of the present three-unit Philippine History course, separate from the Rizal course. I hope CHEd can consider adding one more history course to cover the modern world (joining the previous three units for Asian History and three units for Western History that were watered down and relegated to K-12. More than arguing simply to preserve employment for teachers of the displaced subjects, we must remind policymakers that philosophy, history, and the humanities are in(formative). Education is not about information alone but the formation of mature citizens, ill-served by being rushed, half-baked, into the workforce.
My pre-1986 Edsa GE courses would appear “crowded” to policymakers today who moved much of the college GE subjects to the senior high school level of the K-12 program. I had six units of Philippine History, three units of Asian Civilization, and three units of Western Civilization. Added to English and Filipino were four Spanish language courses (12 units) that I supplemented with an elective of six units of French. I had Political Science, Socio-Anthropology, and Economics (that included Land Reform and Taxation). Unlike other colleges, my GE had what would be flagged as an “excess” of Philosophy (16 units) and Theology (15 units), useless to human resource departments figuring out my transcript of records for employment. These were not content courses for the discipline indicated in my degree, but these “excess” or “redundant” subjects taught me to think and reflect. These courses polished my communication skills: oral and written. The idea of a broad GE was that much of the “content” taken up in college would need updating by the time you graduate. When a student graduates and goes to work, he or she will be taught all over again.
Twelve units of college Spanish disappeared from GE. Where did the 12 units go? What were they replaced with? If I had my way, GE should have at least 12 units in a foreign language of the student’s choice, because having one more language under their belt aside from default English and Pilipino arms the student for the challenges of a global world. If this were so, most students today would choose Korean if only to enjoy K-Pop and K-dramas in the original, without the need for subtitles or translations. If Korean or Japanese is not available, students would surely opt for the once dreaded Spanish, simply because they need not start from scratch. All Pinoys can jump from Level 0 to Level 1 because they know lunes to sabado, and differentiate between cuchara and tenedor.
Philippine History is taken up in Grade 5 or 6, and they have no more dedicated Philippine history until they encounter the college course Readings in Philippine History with its ominous catalog number “RIPH” better listed as “R.I.P-H” (Rest In Peace, History). What kind of Philippine History do you teach a Grade 5 student? Just basic facts useful for quiz shows, like what is the acronym for the three priests executed in 1872? Answer: “Gomburza” or even, correctly, “Majoha.”
College-level maturity is required to handle primary source texts and contentious issues like the death of Andres Bonifacio at the hands of his countrymen or whether martial law was boon or bane. History is a necessary tool in an age of fake news and disinformation.
K-12 did not deliver students ready for college-level history. The solution is not moving RIPH to senior high, but keeping the present six units of Philippine History in college. History helps students develop roots, before they grow wings, become OFWs, and remit money back to the motherland that will end up in the pockets of the corrupt. History is subversive because it teaches us that things don’t have to be the way they are.
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