The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has announced that it would suspend the implementation of the proposed reframed General Education (GE) curriculum for all higher education programs this school year, following mounting opposition and consultations with stakeholders across the education sector.

Speaking during a press conference on Wednesday evening, May 13, CHED chairperson Shirley Agrupis said the decision was reached after an inter-agency meeting involving CHED, Department of Education (DepEd), Teacher Education Council, and Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

“This is the reason why we called now for this interview so that we will put finality on the many, many doubts and questions from our stakeholders,” Agrupis said.

“We came to a decision that there will be no GE implementation across all programs this school year. This is to give us time to analyze and study well the different manifestations, because we understand where they are coming from,” she added.

Agrupis also clarified that there would be no pilot testing of the proposed reframed curriculum in teacher education programs.

“The target of this will be 2028 so that this will give us time to study and then listen more from the different stakeholders,” she said.

The proposed curriculum, which seeks to reduce GE units from 36 to 18, has triggered criticism from academic organizations, faculty unions, and advocacy groups over concerns that it could weaken humanities and social science education in colleges.

Agrupis said the proposal was meant to address overlaps between senior high school and college subjects while updating the curriculum to match current learning and workforce demands.

“The main goal of this proposed reframing is to review and eliminate the redundancies between the senior high school and college GE courses,” she said.

She added that CHED also aims “to avoid misalignment between intended outcomes and contemporary learner realities and significant drops in the integration of the emerging competencies.”

According to Agrupis, CHED and partner agencies agreed to create an inter-agency technical working group that would further study the proposal and consolidate recommendations from various sectors.

“After listening to the manifestations and the position papers from the different stakeholders, we agreed to form an inter-agency technical working group to study the different insights and inputs of the different groups regarding this reframed integrated curriculum,” she said.

CHED has so far received 15 official position papers from individuals, higher education institutions (HEIs), professional organizations, and CHED technical panels.

Agrupis said the submissions include inputs from the ACT Party-list, which represents 352 HEIs, as well as nine professional organizations and individual stakeholders who participated in consultation meetings.

The commission has also received 22 official statements from HEIs and individuals through its online feedback mechanism as of May 13, she added.

Amid protests and petitions opposing the proposal, Agrupis maintained that the consultations were intended precisely to gather criticism and recommendations from affected sectors.

“This draft CMO (CHED Memorandum Order) was subjected to consultation for consultation. This is not just for information,” she said.

“The end goal of this consultation is to solicit inputs from various stakeholders from different fields, especially those affected in this reframed 18-units curriculum,” she added.

Agrupis also acknowledged concerns over the possible displacement of faculty members if the proposed curriculum revisions are eventually implemented.

“CHED is very much aware of that. If there are revisions, if there are innovations, especially in the curriculum, definitely there will be displacement,” she said.

She said CHED had already begun gathering data from higher education institutions even before concerns about faculty displacement were raised publicly.

“That’s why even before they asked if there will be displacement, CHED is a data-driven policymaking body, so we already developed a system for online feedback,” Agrupis said.

“I hope that through this announcement, as we have already decided that the initial implementation of this will still be in 2028, [they] still have so much time to give their inputs,” she said.