TSU to Include IP Studies in Curriculum  

In compliance with Republic Act No. 10908, or the “Integrated History Act of 2016,” and the Commission on Higher Education’s Resolution No. 436-2018, dated August 7, 2018, the Tarlac State University will implement the “integration of Indigenous Peoples’ (IP) Studies/Education into the subjects in the tertiary curriculum.”

On an action form accompanying a copy of CHED Resolution No. 436-2018, the TSU president, Dr. Myrna Q. Mallari, wrote the words “FYI and for implementation,” effectively starting the ball rolling towards the inclusion of IP Studies and Education in the university’s “history, social sciences, sociology and humanities subjects.”

According to the CHED resolution, a memorandum is being drafted “urging the higher education institutions (HEIs) to include in the New General Education subject, Readings in Philippine History, the readings about the Indigenous Peoples.”

These readings will “include the Muslims, in order to address issues that confront the country’s Indigenous Peoples Communities such as poverty and human rights abuse.”

The Indigenous Peoples Rights’ Act (IPRA) of 1997, the resolution added, “affirms IP rights to ancestral domains, self-governance and empowerment, social justice and human rights as well as rights to cultural identity.”

The efforts to integrate IP Studies and Education into HEI curricula were made by CHED Commissioner and TSU Regent Ronald L. Adamat, the resolution said. [OPAI]