SEVERAL MEMBERS of the university’s Curriculum Committee presented the proposed core curriculum revision to student body and clarified the concerns raised during #AteneoattheCore forum organized by the Sanggunian ng mga Paaralang Loyola ng Ateneo de Manila on January 10 at the Faura Audio Visual Room.

The Curriculum Committee is one of the standing committees of the school council made up of faculty members headed by Department of Political Science Professor Benjamin Tolosa. Management engineering senior Ray Gomez is also part of the committee as a student representative.

The proposed revision was first introduced to the faculty members of the Loyola Schools during the second faculty day on February 2.

The change will cause a reduction in the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) General Education (GE) from 63 units to 36 units.

According to Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Josefina Hofileña, they have been reviewing the core curriculum for over a year and a half.

“We’ve been going back and forth to departments and programs, and to the faculty, getting their inputs and their concerns, [and] putting it together into an actual proposal,” said Hofileña.

In line with this, Hofileña clarified that they are still under negotiations with the English Department regarding the possibility of an additional 3-units to the proposed number of units for the Language and Literature cluster.

Moreover, Vice President to the Loyola Schools John Paul Vergara said that they are trying to request for some autonomy from CHED regarding the crafting of the core curriculum.

“We will make communications to the CHED to give us a little more autonomy because we are an autonomous institution. But in general, we have always complied to [these] kinds of things. We will argue for space so we’re given the flexibility,” he said.

The change in the core curriculum is expected to solely affect the freshman batch of school year 2018-2019.

Queries

When asked about the effect of the revision on the tuition fee, Vergara said that this event is an opportunity to revisit the current tuition fee structure.

“We’re trying to review the tuition fee structure para we’re closer to the per unit charging. For the longest time, we’ve had a tuition fee structure where we had [a full load structure],” he said.

In a full load tuition fee structure, students pay a uniform amount regardless of whether they meet the prescribed number of units or not. In a per unit structure, students will only pay for the amount equivalent to the number of units that they have enlisted.

Meanwhile, concerns about the Integrated Non-Academic Formation (INAF) Program were also raised during the talk.

As a response, Hofileña said that they are working closely with the INAF team in adjusting the program to the new core curriculum.

She also added that the National Service Training Program will not be scrapped since it is mandated by law.

However, they are planning to assign NSTP when the students are already taking more major subjects, since NSTP will be more discipline-based.

Moreover, in terms of the number of professors, Hofileña assured that only the curriculum load will be affected and not the faculty load.

The need for revision

According to Hofilena, the current curriculum in the university has been implemented since 1998.

She added that the curriculum modification at that time was motivated by the “desire for articulation of the ideal Ateneo graduate in the context of the fast-changing world” and the impending growth of which was then known as the School of Arts and Sciences.

Similarly, Hofileña said that the core curriculum needs to be revisited to allow it to adapt to the changing circumstances.

“The core has been in place for about 20 years, a little less than 20 years. So, it [is] really time to review it and to see if it still remains relevant to the needs of time, as well if it is still consistent with direction in Jesuit higher education,”

Furthermore, the revision was also due to the added impetus of a comprehensive educational reform currently taking place in the country.

Hofileña said that due to the introduction of Senior High School, some subjects that are currently being taken up in the first two years of college would be redundant.

“The challenge that is before us in the Ateneo is to revise the core curriculum in a manner that remains true to our Ateneo identity, while incorporating the revisions mandated by CHED. We are fitting the CHED into our core. We are not changing our core to fit the CHED GE,” she said.

Next steps

According to Hofileña, the proposed new curriculum has yet to be finalized. There are still some changes to be undergone in the overall proposal such as a revision in the minimum and maximum number of units of a 4-year undergraduate degree program.

“We are in the process of finalizing and revising, and hopefully we’ll be finished by the end of the semester,” Hofileña said.

The Curriculum Committee also plans on establishing an office for the core curriculum in the Ateneo which will cater to any concerns regarding the revised curriculum.

“The new core curriculum is going to be accompanied by a proposal for an office that will take care of the core curriculum. For now, we don’t have a name for it yet,” she said.

Once the proposal is approved by the school council, the Loyola Schools will be presented to the Board of Trustees for final approval.

“We hope to be able to present to the Board of Trustees by May this year,” Hofileña said.

The next step would be to review the curriculum of each degree because the Curriculum Committee will have to adjust these to the new core subjects.

“We will look at all the majors’ curricula [for the next two school years] so that come School Year 2018-2019, which is the deadline of CHED to implement the new GE, we will be more than ready,” said Hofileña.