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Another paper again. :)
This is only my revision. The original is Miguel's, Ezra's and my idea.
It’s been two years since the K-12 program has been implemented by the Department of Education (DepEd) in the Philippines. Now, the Commission of Higher Education (CHED) is trying to find out the best curriculum for college students in order to complement the K-12 system implemented by DepEd. Finally, CHED decided to use “Liberal Education” as a basis of formulating the college curriculum. The reason is that liberal education is what makes us more human.
Liberal education is an education, according to Alan Simpson, which nourishes the mind and the spirit. It is often mistaken as liberal arts or humanities, which is also seen as impractical to the real world. Therefore, most people prefer specialization and professional courses, and inconsiderately disregard the humanities. According to Giamatti, such training, which is proper to the demands and proficiency requirements of a career or profession, is not the real tendency of an education, or of the educational process. Those who disagree with Giamatti and believes that liberal education is not the real education, obviously, have no knowledge of what it is and what it is capable of. What really teaches general and moral information, which is fruitfully applicable to the real world, is liberal education. It also gives them more knowledge than what specialization can offer.
Some universities claim that they offer the best quality education that a student can acquire so they prioritize specialization in their curriculum. However, is it really necessary for students to only focus on their specialization, too much into the training of skills and insensitively ignoring the sciences and humanities?
Imagine a world where people are unaware about what’s happening in their society; only doing their own selfish businesses in which people hardly communicate. Norman Cousins mentioned that the humanities can be eliminated if a free society is not absolutely dependent on a functioning citizenry. The new technologies that the societies have now are used for solving misunderstandings through bloody ways, forgetting the diplomatic way of negotiation. A case of this is what’s happening now in Zamboanga, the confrontation between the Moro Nationalists Liberation Front and the Armed Forces of the Philippines where in children and women were used as human shields heartlessly by the MNLF. Does this show that humans have lost their humanity? With liberal education, people are given a wide range of knowledge including morals and ethics hand in hand with professionalism that can help them communicate with one another and be compassionate to each other.
Furthermore, it does not only teach them knowledge but also helps them to have values and sensitivity, thus giving them a full taste of human life in terms of intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual aspects. This is what a human should be, rational and moral since we are different from robots which are programmed on doing their jobs and do not care about their surroundings. The world has had enough of intellectual peoplewho are insensitive to the needs of their fellow men and worse is harming them. In our country, this is evident on how most of our elected government officials and their cohorts abusively and selfishly splurge the millions of funds entrusted to them. The world, most especially our country needs now someone who not only, opens their eyes considerately to the problems in the society but also thoughtfully provides solutions.
Raman pointed out in his article,“…by encouraging our students to develop respect, compassion and consideration for other human beings, how fruitful our educational efforts could be. So we highly recommend Liberal Education to be implemented by CHED. Because this education that holistically shapes us and makes us more human is the most practical after all.
