MANILA, Philippines — Perceived deficiencies in basic education made colleges and universities keep offering several general education classes even though these were already taught in senior high school, a lawmaker explained during a joint House hearing with members of EDCOM 2.
While the Commission on Higher Education removed 38 to 48 units of required general education classes when the K to 12 program began, colleges and universities added back courses that would serve as “remediation for the deficiencies of basic education,” making most degree programs still last four years, EDCOM 2 member Rep. Francisco Benitez (Negros Occidental, 3rd District) said Thursday.
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“One of the motivations is obviously to keep kids in school. (But) ultimately what’s been happening in the last 10 years or so is that the deficiencies in our basic education system is remediated by our higher education system,” Benitez said.
Commission on Higher Education Chairperson Popoy De Vera also said that CHED also received “pushback” from industry professionals and other groups on their plans to trim down the curriculum of various degree programs.
The joint House hearing led by the basic and higher education committees was held to align the priorities of CHED and the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2), which began its top-to-bottom review of the education system this year, three decades after the first EDCOM was created.
Benitez authored the House version of the law creating EDCOM 2.
The Department of Education’s ongoing review of senior high has so far found a curriculum overstuffed with content and yet missing several prerequisites for essential learning competencies, Vice President Sara Duterte, concurrently education chief, said in January.
RELATED: Duterte: K-12 students ready for work right after graduation 'still a promise'
Senior high - college equivalency
During the discussion, members of EDCOM 2 asked De Vera to explain why several college degree programs still require four years of study despite the reduced number of general education classes which were downloaded to senior high.
“At a point in time, the Department of Education together with CHED was also telling Congress that there will be an equivalency... Instead of having a four-year course, the general subjects can be reduced on the first year of college. So where are we at this point?” said Rep. Roman Romulo (Pasig), chair of the basic education committee.
De Vera said that while it has reduced the number of years in engineering courses to four, technical panels for other degree programs are still completing its roadmaps to assess whether to reduce the number of required units.
But CHED also has to find “imaginative solutions” due to “significant pushback of some associations of professionals who want to keep the integrity of the curriculum being implemented and would not like to significantly change it,” said De Vera, who added that he “personally” supports downsizing college curriculums.
“The concern of some professional organizations is that it is going to affect the reputation of the products of the profession,” De Vera said in Filipino.
Chito Salazar of the Philippine Business for Education shared that based on his participation in helping form the K to 12 program, which was implemented fully in 2013, the panel already foresaw that schools would opt to fill the gap left by the removal of 45 units in higher education.
"It is an execution problem," Salazar said.
For years, critics of the K to 12 program have said that adding two more years of high school placed an unnecessary financial strain on students and their parents without clear returns.
This was compounded by reports of senior high graduates struggling to find employment in a job market where they compete with those who finished four-year college degree programs.
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who is also a member of EDCOM 2, has also criticized the Civil Service Commission for lumping senior high graduates with graduates of the old high school curriculum in its hiring process for entry-level positions.
Commissioned by Gatchalian, a Pulse Asia survey in 2022 among 1,200 respondents revealed that 44% of adult respondents were dissatisfied with the program – 16 percentage points higher than in 2019.