College educators favor additional 2 years to RP's 10-year BEC

MANILA, Philippines - College educators have expressed their support to a bid by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to lay out a two-year pre-university system, but said that there should also be a discussion of the alternative of putting an additional year or years in the 10-year basic education curriculum (BEC).

Dr. Vincent Fabella, president of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU), said that the move being spearheaded by CHED chairman Dr. Emmanuel Angeles III to overhaul the country’s education system by establishing a two-year pre-university level for students pursuing professional courses such as engineering, architecture, accounting, and even nursing and education, was welcome since it called attention to the deficiencies of the country’s 10-year BEC.

In the CHED proposal to establish a two year pre-university level, college-bound students would be required to take a scholastic aptitude test that will clear them for entry into the two-year pre-university level.

In the set-up, CHED’s Angeles said that that education highway for students taking up the said courses which are regarded as professional licensure courses since their graduates are required to pass a Professional Regulation Commission licensure exam to get a license to practice their chosen profession would be a total of 15 years divided into 10 years of BEC or elementary and high school, two years of pre-university and three years of university proper or “10 plus 2 plus 3”.

In pushing for the pre-university plan, Angeles said that the move was being pursued in a bid to assure the recognition of Filipino professionals in other countries especially in developed countries which have a standard 12 years of BEC.

Angeles is now going around the country to conduct public consultations with school officials and students of the different colleges and universities throughout the country, region by region, to present the two-year pre-university level plan.

Angeles said that the results of the consultations will decide the fate of the program.   — Rainier Allan Ronda