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—Let’s compare Revitalized General Education Program (RGEP) objectives across time. When I began teaching HUM 1 (2003), I inherited sample syllabi with the following objectives held in common (SET A):
1. Broaden intellectual & cultural horizons
2. Foster a commitment to nationalism balanced by a sense of internationalism
3. Cultivate a capacity for independent, critical, and creative thinking
4. Infuse a passion for learning with a high sense of moral and intellectual integrity
By the time we were fighting against large class and creating HUM 3 (around 2009), we were told that our RGEP objectives were outdated. Apparently, UPLB has been using the following roster (SET B):
1. Broaden intellectual and cultural horizons
2. Foster a commitment to nationalism balanced with a sense of internationalism
3. Create an awareness of various ways of knowing
See how they reduced SET A’s #3 and #4 to SET B’s #3? I asked for clarification in a college meeting. The so-called czar of UPLB’s RGEP replied that UPLB, like other component univerities (CU), had a choice to shape its RGEP objectives from the UP system’s menu of RGEP objectives (see SET A). From the four, UPLB made its three (see SET B) and watered it down further, asking that “a revitalized GE course has at least two of the following objectives.”
Just two. This means we could make a GE without nationalism. And while other CUs kept their #3 and #4, UPLB’s GEs required neither “critical inquiry” nor “intellectual integrity”.
So much for either “excellence” or “honor”.
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—When the rhetoric doesn’t match the curricular objectives (not to mention the budget for someone’s inauguration), we should get to thinking. But it’s exactly that kind of thinking that the power bloc systematically downgraded and devalued in UPLB culture.
UP Mindanao shares our route. Meanwhile, here’s UP Baguio with their “capacity for independent, critical and creative thinking” as well as their “passion for learning with a high sense of moral and intellectual integrity” intact.
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