CHED verifying impact of Filipino subject removal

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is verifying the reported impact of the removal of Filipino and Panitikan subjects in the college curriculum, including possible removal of thousands of teachers. 

“We will verify because there are claims that 10,000 teachers will be affected,” CHED chairman J. Prospero de Vera III told The STAR on Friday.

“We don’t have data on how many of them tried to retool, how many of them applied for positions in senior high. It’s difficult to make a determination of the impact unless all of these are available to the commission,” he added.

David San Juan, convenor of the Filipino language advocacy group Tanggol Wika, earlier warned of massive layoffs following the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of a 2013 CHED policy that removed the mandatory Filipino and Panitikan subjects from the college curriculum.

The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, aside from urging CHED to continue enforcing policies that promote the use of the Filipino language, would also support the filing of a motion for reconsideration by groups advocating the use of Filipino like Tanggol Wika.

 San Juan said that while there might be a little chance the Supreme Court would grant the motion his group could “hold a dialog” with CHED to “convince them to fix the curriculum, adding Filipino and Panitikan” since they have the power to do so.

The high court said CHED is authorized to determine the minimum unit requirements for specific academic programs; general education distribution requirements as may be determined by the Commission; and specific professional subjects as may be stipulated by the various licensing entities.

It also noted that the study of Filipino, Panitikan and the Constitution is already found in the basic education curriculum, recognizing that the changes in the college curriculum were implemented to ensure that there would be no duplication of subjects.

The SC also ruled that nothing in stated laws require that Filipino and Panitikan must be included as required subjects in the tertiary level.

De Vera said the commission will study the relevant issues raised by stakeholders, noting that none of the current commissioners were members of the body when the 2013 policy was issued. 

Asked if it is possible for CHED to revise the curriculum to include Panitikan and Filipino, he said it will be up to the commissioners.

“(But definitely) not if what they will teach is exactly what is already being taught in senior high. That is what we have to determine. If that was downloaded to senior high, what is the content that was downloaded?” said De Vera.

“Because if they will insist that they will teach it as it is, and there is duplication with senior high, then I will not support that kind of reality because the reason why we had senior high is so that the students are supposed to develop competencies to be university-ready,” he added.

DepEd: Korean not a core subject

Meanwhile, the Department of Education (DepEd) clarified that the Korean language will only be taught as an elective in a handful of schools in Metro Manila.

Responding to false claims that Korean will replace Filipino, Education Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla said the foreign language will only be an elective in select schools.

“We want to correct (the impression) that Korean language will be a core subject. It is not. It is just an elective. Meaning, if a school offers it, then that is one of the choices of the students,” Sevilla said on Friday.

The Korean language will be the sixth foreign language included in DepEd’s Special Program in Foreign Languages. Other languages offered are German, Spanish, French, Mandarin and Nihongo.

Sevilla said the Korean language elective will be piloted in 10 schools in Metro Manila previously selected by the DepEd and the Korean embassy.

She said the program has yet to begin as the teachers are still undergoing training.

“If the student is interested to have Korean or any other foreign language as an elective, they need to have mastery first of English and Filipino. They cannot take a foreign language subject if we know that they have a problem with our mother tongue, which is Filipino, and in English,” she said in Filipino.

Education Secretary Leonor Briones earlier said they will discuss with CHED to determine if there is a need to revise the basic education curriculum in light of the removal of these subjects in college. – Ghio Ong