The country’s largest network of Catholic schools and the Catholic bishops’ education arm joined mounting concerns over the proposed reframed General Education curriculum, particularly on its implications for ethics, humanities, and academic freedom.

In a joint statement titled “Protect the Formative Core,” the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Catholic Education (CBCP-ECCE) on Friday, May 8, called on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to reconsider key provisions of the proposed reframed General Education curriculum.

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“General Education remains the formative core of the university experience,” the statement read, adding that higher education must continue forming students “intellectually, morally, and socially.”

The groups acknowledged CHED’s earlier assurance that consultations on the draft curriculum would continue.

However, they urged the commission to conduct a “more grounded and evidence-based review of the draft curriculum through expanded and structured consultations with students, educators, scholars, and academic leaders.”

CEAP and CBCP-ECCE also raised concerns over the treatment of ethics in the proposed curriculum, saying moral formation should not be diluted or treated as merely incidental across subjects.

“Treating ethics as merely diffuse or incidental across the General Education curriculum risks producing only a ‘thin crust’ of moral awareness: present in language but shallow in formation,” they said.

The groups urged CHED to institutionalize ethics as both a foundational discipline in moral philosophy and an integrative component across different academic fields.

The Catholic education organizations also warned against what they described as the marginalization of philosophy, humanities, and the arts in the reframed GE curriculum.

“While employability and digital literacy are legitimate goals, they must not eclipse the deeper purpose of higher education,” the groups said.

“The marginalization of philosophy, humanities, and the arts, which are disciplines that cultivate critical reflection, imagination, and civic responsibility, signals a narrowing of education's horizon,” they added.

CEAP and CBCP-ECCE also questioned CHED’s proposed pilot implementation of the reframed GE curriculum, arguing that General Education is too foundational to be tested only in select institutions.

“GE shapes the intellectual and moral architecture of all students; piloting it in select institutions risks uneven formation and undermines the shared national baseline GE is meant to provide,” the groups said.

They instead recommended nationwide consultations, phased institutional capacity-building, and clearer articulation of “non-negotiable components” necessary for what they called “integral human formation.”

CEAP and CBCP-ECCE also emphasized the need to uphold academic freedom and institutional autonomy in any curriculum reform process.

They warned against a “rigid, top-down curricular model” that could undermine the expertise of educators and the distinct missions of schools and universities.

“At stake is the identity of the university as a community of inquiry ordered toward truth, meaning, and human flourishing,” they said.

The proposed reframed GE curriculum has drawn reactions from several higher education institutions and academic groups in recent days, with concerns centering on possible reductions in humanities and social science components, as well as questions on consultation and implementation.