FACULTY GROUPS from various universities have urged the country’s education agencies to pause the implementation of the revised senior high school (SHS) curriculum, saying it would compromise job security, academic freedom and the quality of higher education.
The Council of Teachers and Staff of Colleges and Universities of the Philippines (CoTeSCUP) called on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Education (DepEd) to facilitate dialogues with academic stakeholders, claiming that the proposed curriculum revision poses job displacement risks and lowers academic standards.
“We urge CHED, DepEd, and policymakers to pause the implementation of these proposals until meaningful dialogue with the academic community takes place and strong safeguards for teachers are established,” CoTeSCUP said in a statement.
The statement was attached to separate letters sent to CHED Chairperson Shirley Agrupis on June 3 and House basic education and culture committee chairman Roman Romulo on June 5.
It was signed by CoTeSCUP president and Artlets Assoc. Prof. Rene Luis Tadle and 14 of the council’s administrative and board members, including UST Faculty Union president Asst. Prof. Emerito Gonzales.
“Removing these subjects strips college education of its ethical, cultural, and global grounding. Even more concerning is the impact on teachers, many of whom stand to lose their jobs,” Tadle, who is also the University’s Arts and Letters Faculty Association president, said in a separate statement dated June 6.
The statement came after CHED and DepEd agreed to remove three “redundant” subjects from college education and “map” them across basic education and SHS subjects, which would shorten college programs by one semester.
In the proposed curriculum, general education subjects Art Appreciation, Contemporary World and Ethics, would be removed from tertiary education and would instead be covered by high school education subjects, such as Arts, Araling Panlipunan and Values Education respectively.
The plan is part of DepEd’s proposed “Strengthened Senior High School Program” which intends to address high school graduates’ job readiness, shorten the minimum years required for college and reduce bridging programs that result from the “mismatch” between students’ senior high school strands and their chosen college programs.
Under the revised curriculum, SHS tracks will be divided into two instead of four: academic and technical professional, where students will be taking five core subjects in 11th grade that will mirror general education college subjects; and five to seven electives from various fields in 12th grade.
More than 800 schools in the country will run the pilot implementation of the new SHS curriculum in the academic year 2025-2026.
“While we acknowledge the need for curricular reforms to address issues of redundancy and alignment, we strongly believe that these changes must not compromise the rights, welfare, and dignity of educators,” CoTeSCUP said.
According to the faculty coalition, the removal of the three general education (GE) subjects and the lack of transition plans for teachers will lead to a reduction in teaching load for the college faculty, exposing them to job non-renewal, reassignment or displacement.
“This situation contradicts the principles enshrined in the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, which guarantees the protection of the right to employment and due process (Article III, Section 1), as well as the rights of workers to security of tenure and humane conditions of work (Article XIII, Section 3),” CoTeSCUP said.
The revised curriculum may also cause “learning gaps” among college students which would force the return of remedial courses, defeating the purpose of reducing the academic semester, the coalition said.
It added that integrating the general education courses into SHS subjects would lower academic standards and limit the scope of liberal education, a circumstance that would “marginalize” disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.
“There’s a pedagogical difference between teaching these subjects to 16-year-olds in SHS and to adult learners in college. This isn’t just a question of content—it’s about readiness, maturity, and academic purpose,” Tadle said.
The faculty coalition called for a broader consultation on the subjects’ removal that would include academic groups and stakeholders. It also requested that transition safeguards for teachers, such as retraining, retooling and load protection policies be ensured in the implementation of the new curriculum. F — Veancy Palad
