When and how do we improve higher education curriculum?

(First of two parts)

EDCOM II executive director Karol Mark Yee has been making the rounds of media interviews, castigating the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for its slow updating of the curriculum of degree programs in higher education institutions (HEIs).

He asserts that it takes CHED 11 years to update the curriculum; as a result, evolving industry demands and technological developments are not captured, and the workforce the country needs is not produced.

He also asserted that the CHED policies, standards, and guidelines (PSGs) are overly restrictive, preventing HEIs from adding innovative subjects.

When and how do we improve the curriculum of degree programs?

Let me set the basic premises.

Curriculum development is a highly technical process. It involves pedagogical expertise, instructional design, mastery of specific academic fields, data analysis and research and evaluation.

Curriculum revision also takes time: once it begins, it takes four to five years for students who have completed the new curriculum to graduate, and another two to three years before they are employed. This is the only time employers can provide feedback on whether their skills and competencies align with those required in the workplace.

A serious, substantive revision of the curriculum begins with an analysis of the supply and demand for graduates from a degree program. How many HEIs offer this degree program? Where are these located? How many enroll in this degree program? How many graduate? Where do the graduates go? Who hires them? Do they get employed locally, regionally or internationally? What do the employers say about the graduates? How is this degree program being taught in other countries?

In other countries, regular tracer studies can provide the needed data. Unfortunately, in the Philippines, very few of the nearly 2,000 public and private universities conduct rigorous tracer studies, and curriculum reform is often hit-or-miss.

The central question in curriculum revision is simple: what competencies, knowledge, values and attitudes should students acquire in a degree program to be employable, pursue higher education or continue lifelong learning?

There is also a need to answer the question: what national and global changes (technological developments, labor market supply and demand, emerging academic paradigms, changing expectations of professional and regulatory bodies and new international standards) are expected over the next decade that will require revising the curriculum?

Once these are identified, the next question is: which subjects need to be included in the curriculum to develop the identified competencies, knowledge, values and attitudes? How will these subjects be organized to enable the student to develop them throughout their studies?

The final question is: what constitutes success in a curricular reform? How can curricular reform be evaluated within a reasonable time frame?

Without a clear vision for curriculum reform, the data needed and a roadmap for reform, curriculum revision will be a mechanical academic exercise of adding and subtracting subjects.

In the Philippines, the last round of curriculum revision was prompted by the implementation of RA 10533, the K-12 program, which reduced General Education from 63 to 36 units by shifting what had previously been taught in the first two years of university to senior high school.

This change shortened some degree programs, such as engineering, from five to four years. It also enabled the extension of industry immersion and internships and gave HEIs greater flexibility to add innovative, degree-specific subjects. However, for some degree programs (like architecture), the duration could not be shortened due to laws mandating minimum years of schooling.

CHED, through its Technical Panels, was required to issue PSGs for more than 100 degree programs. The PSG specifies the curriculum structure, faculty qualifications, facilities and laboratories required for a degree program. HEIs are expected to enhance the PSG by introducing innovative or additional subjects to improve the curriculum.

Did CHED do a good job in revising the curriculum of all degree programs?

Unfortunately, when I was appointed CHED chairman in 2018, more than 90 percent of the degree programs had approved PSGs.

Was I happy with how it was done? My answer is NO. In fact, I voted NO on the PSG for Teacher Education and returned several proposed PSGs (agriculture, pharmacy, naval architecture, among others) to the Technical Panel because they were overly burdensome or lacked clear frameworks.

What was wrong with the curriculum revision? Many of the Technical Panels responsible for drafting the PSG were composed mainly of academics. How can we ensure outcome-based education if employers of our graduates are not involved in the revision process? For instance, the Technical Panel on Forestry did not include a DENR representative, and agricultural companies were absent from both the Technical Panel on Agriculture and the Technical Panel on Fisheries.

Some of the Technical Panels were unable to present supply-and-demand projections or discuss the development of their field, even within ASEAN.

Were the PSG loaded, overly restrictive and limiting for HEIs seeking innovation?

My answer is YES.

However, Karol Mark Yee failed to mention in his interviews that all of these curriculum revisions were approved during the tenure of chairman Patricia Licuanan, when he was a key official at the CHED (executive director and program director of the problematic K-12 transition scholarship program).

I find it intellectually irresponsible of him to castigate CHED for the slow pace of curriculum revision without acknowledging his role in the problem.