THE first myth that ought to be debunked is that there is a government agency that is possessed of such insight and expertise that, by itself, it can design and decide how higher education ought to go in the country. In starting with this proposition, I reject outright the role that the Commission on Higher Education has arrogated to itself — and concomitantly warn against legislative attempts at empowering CHEd even further! The truth is that CHEd has been a disaster — taking higher education from one experiment to the other at the expense of students and their future.
The latest foray of CHEd into educational reform was its version of "outcomes-based education," an experiment that brought untold misery to so many professors and instructors who had to draw up syllabi, tables of specification and curriculum maps according to this latest whim of CHEd. I have repeatedly pointed out the shortcomings of this version of OBE. What it does is to make the graduates of colleges and universities fit into cubbyholes prepared for them by industry, business and government. Those who see employment as the main purpose of higher education will applaud this. But those who think that higher education should be more than getting graduates ready jobs that business and government can dish out to them will dissent — and rightly so.
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