The SHS core subjects

The Department of Education (DepEd) has outlined the relationships among the subjects from Grades 7 to 10, the Senior High School (SHS) core subjects, and the revised General Education Curriculum (GEC) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

There are three CHED documents that are directly relevant to SHS.

The first is CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 2, series of 2011. In this CMO, entitled “Revised Guidelines in the Formulation of CHED Policies, Standards and Guidelines of Academic Programs, amending CHED Special Order No. 42, series of 2003, otherwise known as ‘Guidelines for the Formulation of Policies and Standards of Academic Programs,’” CHED reduced the number of General Education (GE) units to 36.

Thirty-six units is a minimum, not a maximum. We should compare that number to those in two earlier CHED documents. CMO No. 59, s. 1996, entitled “New General Education Curriculum,” required a minimum of 63 units of GE for all students majoring in humanities, social sciences, and communication. CHED Memorandum (CM) No. 4, s. 1997, required a minimum of 51 units of GE for students pursuing other majors. Reducing the required minimum units to 36 means, in effect, that college students save roughly one year of GE courses.

The second is CMO 20, s. 2013, entitled “General Education Curriculum: Holistic Understandings, Intellectual and Civic Competencies.” This CMO specifies the subjects that will form part of the minimum 36 units. Again, the number is a minimum, not a maximum. A Higher Education Institution (HEI) may add to (but not subtract from) the number of GE units.

The third is CHED Resolution No. 298-2011, which lists the College Readiness Standards (CRS), defined as “the combination of knowledge, skills, and reflective thinking necessary to participate and succeed – without remediation – in entry-level undergraduate courses in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).”

If that enumeration is tedious, wait until you read the next paragraphs. These might bore you to death, but they are important if we want to understand how and why the SHS core subjects were selected.

According to DepEd, “Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao” and “Health” in Grades 7 to 10 are prerequisites to the SHS subject called “Personal Development,” which in turn prepares students for the GEC subject on “Understanding the Self.” (I will use the English titles of the GEC subjects for convenience; in CMO 20, the subjects have both Filipino and English titles and course descriptions, because they may be taught in either of these languages.)

“Araling Panlipunan” and “Filipino” in Grades 7 to 10 are meant to feed into the GEC subject on “Readings in Philippine History.”

“English,” “Filipino,” and “Araling Panlipunan” in Grades 7 to 10 are prerequisites to the SHS core subject on “21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World.” The latter leads to the GEC subject on “The Contemporary World.”

“Math” in Grades 7 to 10 prepares students for the SHS core subjects on “General Math” and “Statistics and Probability.” The college student takes math into a multidisciplinary context in the GEC subject on “Mathematics in the Modern World.”

“English” and “Filipino” in Grades 7 to 10 are prerequisites for the SHS core subjects of “Oral Communication,” “Reading and Writing,” “Komunikasyon at Pananaliksik sa Wika at Kulturang Filipino,” “Pagbasa at Pagsusuri ng Iba’t ibang Teksto tungo sa Pananaliksik,” and “Media and Information Literacy.” These SHS subjects, in turn, prepare the student for the multidisciplinary GEC subject on “Purposive Communication.”

“Music and Arts” and “Physical Education” in Grades 7 to 10 prepare students for the SHS core subject of “Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions,” which in turn prepares for the GEC subject on “Art Appreciation.”

“Science,” “Araling Panlipunan,” “English,” “Filipino,” and “Health” in Grades 7 to 10 are prerequisites to the SHS core subjects of “Understanding Culture, Politics, and Society,” “Physical Science,” and “Earth and Life Science.” In turn, these subjects prepare students for the GEC subject on “Science, Technology, and Society.”

“Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao” and “Araling Panlipunan” prepare students for the SHS core subject of “Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person” and for the GEC subject of “Ethics.”

In short, the SHS core subjects, which derive from earlier subjects and lead to later subjects (if the student will go to college), are: (1) Oral Communication, (2) Reading and Writing, (3) Komunikasyon at Pananaliksik sa Wika at Kulturang Filipino, (4) Pagbasa at Pagsusuri ng Iba’t Ibang Teksto tungo sa Pananaliksik, (5) 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World, (6) Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions, (7) Media and Information Literacy, (8) General Mathematics, (9) Statistics and Probability, (10) Earth and Life Science, (11) Physical Science, (12) Personal Development, (13) Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics, (14) Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person, and (15) Physical Education and Health.

College-bound students intending to major in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) will take, instead of Numbers 10 and 11, Earth Science and Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction.

(To be continued)