The roadmap for curriculum reform

philstar.com · Feb 27, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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(Second of two parts) In my previous column, I highlighted EDCOM II executive director Karol Mike Yee’s media interviews criticizing the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for its sluggish revision of curricula for degree programs in higher education. 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 higher education institutions (HEIs) from adding innovative subjects. Will an 11-year gap without major curriculum revisions negatively impact student learning? My answer is not necessarily. Eleven years may seem long, especially considering the country’s experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, during which HEIs transitioned to flexible learning from 2020 to 2022. Many HEIs and CHED are still assessing the pandemic’s effects on student learning and curriculum execution. We need to recognize that curriculum implementation and reform are highly technical, deliberate, data-driven and consultative processes that take time. It takes four to five years for students who have completed a 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. At the UP, curriculum revisions generally occur every six years and undergo a thorough academic process that takes approximately two additional years before approval and implementation. The Professional Regulation Commission should also review and update the licensure exams to align with the new curriculum. It is important to analyze licensure results over time to ensure that what is taught in universities is accurately represented in the exams. Without this review process, curriculum revisions will be disastrous. Should we rush major curriculum revision? My answer is NO. As Fullan (2015) noted, curriculum reforms are difficult to implement because they often require changes that challenge embedded practices and realities in individual and organizational contexts. High costs, uncertainty about outcomes and stakeholders’ risk aversion often pose serious challenges to initiating curriculum reform. Implementing a new curriculum also requires substantial investments in teacher training, developing innovative teaching methods and creating new instructional materials. The decision to revise the curriculum must take into account all these factors and should not be a hasty response to every industry complaint or perceived weakness highlighted by politicians. If there are triggering events affecting a degree program, CHED and the HEIs have demonstrated their ability to respond rapidly. In 2022, CHED, MARINA and maritime schools revised the maritime education curriculum and submitted it within two months to address the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) observations, resulting in the successful recognition of certificates for 40,000 Filipino seafarers serving on European Union vessels. Since 2020, CHED and the Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) have been collaborating to align higher education curricula with industry demands, aiming to reduce the talent-skills gap in the IT-BPM sector. In 2023, under the leadership of Dr. Bebong Villaruz, the CHED Technical Panel on Medicine created an Accelerated Program for Medicine (APMed) curriculum that condenses the usual nine- to 10-year medical training (Pre-Med, Med, Internship) into seven years. High school students can now enroll directly in medical studies and become doctors faster. Currently, nine HEIs are using this new curriculum. As instructed by PBBM in 2024, the CHED Technical Panel on Nursing (led by Dr. Milabel Ho), in partnership with UP Manila (Chancellor Mike Tee) and UP Open University (Chancellor Melinda Bandelaria), took only six months to develop an Enhanced Master’s in Nursing Education to produce more faculty members in nursing schools to address the nursing crisis. Clearly, curriculum reform can be done fast if really needed. How should curriculum reform be undertaken? It starts with ensuring equal representation of faculty, government and industry/professional organizations in the CHED technical panels (TP). Second, each discipline’s TP should develop a roadmap that examines supply and demand for graduates, advances in the discipline (theory and practice), compares local and international teaching methods, considers global shifts like technological progress, labor market trends, new academic paradigms and international standards and outlines suggested curriculum updates. Third, this roadmap should be shared with HEIs, professional organizations and industry groups to raise awareness and encourage stakeholder participation, both of which are crucial for effective curriculum reform. And fourth, governance must shift toward greater decentralization so that individual HEIs can shape their own curricula, with an increased focus on educational outcomes. All CHED TPs have now been reconstituted. Stalwarts from the academe, industry and government who are interested in improving education outcomes are now part of this process. Several TPs (history, public administration, nursing, public health, medicine) have produced roadmaps for their disciplines. As soon as CHED approves these roadmaps and the PSGs are revised, individual HEIs can begin embedding innovative subjects, producing new materials and helping teachers improve instruction from the inside out, in a bottom-up rather than a top-down manner. I wish the EDCOM II had studied this matter more seriously and consulted real stakeholders, rather than fixating on the number of years a curriculum must be revised. * * * Email: [email protected]