Burying the humanities and the social sciences

The impact of this will be felt by students taking up courses in the hard sciences, mathematics, engineering, and other technology-related courses, as well as in applied social sciences such as management and economics.

These academic disciplines have already been considered as the core of national development. They nurture the students who are believed to have direct roles to play in the more concrete activities related to economic development.

The humanities and the social sciences have always been considered as secondary in any development agenda, even if ironically development is in fact a social process. After all, we are talking about the development of human societies, and not just the advancement of their technical knowledge.

The focus on measurable indicators of excellence have preoccupied many universities, and the reason and logic of university performance is now measured in world rankings that put a lot of premium on refereed and abstracted publications, and recently, on industry-university collaborations. Thus, deans of humanities and social science colleges are now forced to deal with questions asking them how many poems will be the equivalent of a patent, not only as a theoretical exercise, but are now dealing with these as real challenges to the very existence of their units and faculties.

In many universities abroad, programs in the humanities and the social sciences are abolished, or downgraded. Social science departments, like those in sociology and political science, shift away from more interpretivist and quali- tative orientations and take on a more quantitative bias, to impress on university administration that they are worth keeping.

In the Philippines, there has always been a structured bias against the humanities and the social sciences. Promotion and performance evaluation templates have always been crafted from the perspective of the natural and physical sciences, to which the humanities and social sciences should restructure and adapt. Humanists and social scientists are forced to enter the world of science and technology, and engage in creative works or otherwise embed themselves in S and T research agenda where their knowledge become mere appendages. This approach naturally privileges economics and policy sciences, to the detriment of those social scientists who would like to study soap operas and political culture, and to the creative artists who would like to write those soap operas and engage in culture studies.

It is in being dismissed as irrelevant that the humanists and the the margins of academia.

It is in the GE requirements where they found a sanctuary. The GE is a protected shell whose courses all students, regardless of discipline, have no choice but to take. It is a place where Shakespeare is taught, and where indigenous Filipino worldviews are mainstreamed in students’ minds, and where critical thinking is strengthened. This is to ensure that those who will be building society’s bridges have a sturdy bridge to their own consciousness as persons and as part of a society, with a culture and a history.

And it is that oasis, that refuge for the marginalized disciplines, that has been diminished by that vote taken by the University Council of UP Diliman,

And this is not an isolated case. It was in fact a powerful blow, albeit symbolically, to the already marginalized position of the humanities and the social sciences in the academic discourse in our country. What makes it an unkind cut is that it is UP which did it, the university that projects itself as the bellwether of intellectualism in the country.

I am afraid that UP’s vote may become contagious and will infect other schools.

Supporters of the 21-unit GE argue that this is what we need to become globally competitive. Besides, they also believe that the senior high school curriculum already takes care of the humanities and the social sciences.

One has to examine the curriculum for the senior high school to realize that this is wishful thinking.

And one has to ask whether it is morally right to barter our humanity and turn our universities into vocational and technical institutes just to become globally respectable.