THE COMMITTEE on Higher and Technical Education at the House of Representatives deferred action on two measures that seek to introduce changes to tertiary education curriculum.

These were House Bill 1724 or the proposed Ethics and Accountability Education Act and House Bill 4350 which mandates the inclusion of a foreign language other than English as an elective course in the higher education curriculum.

Laguna 2nd District Rep. Ruth Mariano-Hernandez, author of HB 172, sought to defer deliberations on the measure pending the submission of the final evaluation/assessment done by the Commission on Higher Education regarding the implementation of the ethics subjects in higher education.

CHED Chairman Prospero de Vera III said there was already a three-unit course on ethics in the general education program.

Meanwhile, the committee also deferred deliberation on HB 4350 authored by 4Ps Party-list Rep. Jonathan Clement Abalos II.

Abalos requested documents regarding the recommendation of CHED on the creation of job-ready foreign language curriculum for students and data pertaining to how competence is measured in terms of education, such as the nature of examinations and equivalency that could help lawmakers improve the bill.