Shortening College Years Should Be Evidence-Based – CHED

Any proposal to change the curriculum in college must be backed by sufficient data and evidence, according to Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman J. Prospero de Vera III.

Reacting to the call of Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual to remove general education subjects to shorten the period of studying in college, De Vera said a thorough assessment of the current setup must first be made.

“I do not think it is productive to suddenly and unilaterally declare and change things drastically. It must be based on an assessment of what happened with senior high,” De Vera said at a press briefing on Tuesday, Aug. 30.

“We need empirical evidence and studies to show what happened to the subjects that were moved to senior high. We need to study that first,” he added in English and Filipino.

Pascual, a former president of the University of the Philippines, earlier pushed for shorter college years, noting that general education subjects should have already been covered in basic education.

De Vera, however, noted that a decision on which subjects would remain in college was already made when the senior high school program was being developed.

“We are interested in the review of senior high. That is one of the things we want to find out in the review. What happened to the subjects that were put there? Do they sufficiently cover the outcomes that we used to expect from general education?” he said.

“We also need to study what happened (to the subjects) left in general education. CHED will proceed based on studies and assessment and consultation with schools, etc. We do not engage in very drastic statements without the benefit of evidence, studies and consultations with schools,” he added.

The CHED chief stressed that he would rather wait for the results of the evaluation before coming out with a statement.

“If things are already learned ahead of time and the outcomes have already been achieved, then we should look at how to reduce the number of units of general education on the university level, if the data actually say so,” he said.