Formulate new curriculum, educators urged

MANILA, Philippines - A top educator-scientist is urging fellow educators in the tertiary level to start focusing their attention on the formulation of their new general education (Gen Ed) curriculum aligned with the Revised General Education Curriculum (RGEC) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) post-Kindergarten to 12 implementation in 2018.

Ester Ogena, president of the Philippine Normal University (PNU) and former director of the Department of Science and Technology’s Science Education Institute (DOST-SEI), said that there was an apparent preoccupation by educators on their “survival” and job prospects when the full K to 12 path is implemented in 2018 and colleges and universities are then expected to start offering their new Gen Ed curriculum.

“They’re concerned more on survival than the alignment of their program and the effect on their bottomline…They spend a lot of time discussing how to ensure that the faculty members who will be left with no jobs during the transition will survive. That’s the serious concern among our educators,” Ogena said in her presentation at a policy forum on the new general education curriculum organized by the DOST’s National Research Council of the Philippines.

Ogena said there was a need to shift the discussion to coming up with a new Gen Ed curriculum that is aligned with the RGEC.

She lauded the NRCP for holding the policy forum, saying it provided tertiary educators with a venue for discussion of the new GEC.

More of such forums should be held, Ogena said.

The PNU has revamped its teacher education curriculum to prepare students who will be future teachers of K to 12. PNU added more units and switched to a trimester calendar to accommodate the improved curriculum.

The PNU has been declared by the CHED as a Center for Teaching Excellence. In recognition of its continued leadership in teacher education, PNU was designated as the National Center for Teacher Education on June 30, 2009.