Generally we agreed that a major factor why students and teachers no longer give importance to heritage is the idea of globalization. People train or go to school with the end of going out of the country to find work. Even on the level of CHED, the emphasis is on technical subjects rather than on sociology or history. We find that it is necessary to orient people that globalization and heritage awareness is actually compatible. The knowledge of their heritage can make Filipinos more competitive abroad. Filipino nurses, for example are preferred because of their caring ways which are borne out of their heritage. Many other examples were given on Filipinos who use their knowledge of their own heritage to become successful abroad. The group, however, was not able to pinpoint an action plan to promote awareness on this area.
There were many issues discussed in the tertiary level. We found that the architecture curriculum is already rich in subjects that deal with heritage. In USC, in fact, we offered Architectural Conservation subjects. The problem that we saw was the tendency of students to compartmentalize everything they learned. The students seem to have difficulty integrating all the subjects. Their tendency is to think that what they learn in one subject is not related to the others. There was a suggestion to hold a similar workshop in each school of architecture to all teachers handling the subjects. There was also the suggestion on how to approach the discussion on heritage: to start with issues and trace the causes through heritage. On the part of architectural history, the suggestion is to give examples in the Philippines as the development of western architecture is discussed.
We also found that there is a need for teachers to know more about Filipino heritage if they are supposed to impart and integrate this in the curriculum. There was a suggestion that teachers should go out of their way to learn. There is, however, the observation that there are very few instructional materials on heritage but we also found out that there are a lot of graduate thesis that deals on this field. The group agreed that something should be done to make the thesis works more accessible.
In relation to training teachers handling courses on heritage, there was the observation that the number of sociology students have decreased drastically because of the "makabayan" subject initiated by then Sen. Raul Roco. It seems that potential teachers of the subject are turned off by the content of the subject imposed on them. The makabayan subject for example requires the teacher to sing or to teach it. Generally the group agreed that the makabayan needs rethinking.
The group also realized that the courses other than architecture are slowly dropping sociology or history subject. This is true especially with engineering courses. We agreed that this could be an effect of the CHED's policy on globalization where the emphasis is to make the students more technically competitive. Some schools decided to merge subjects like sociology and Philippine history, literature and humanities, sociology and anthropology. There was a general consensus that the schools should be asked to review their policy on the need to provide a good foundation on heritage related subjects in all the courses they offer.
There was a consensus that ideally these subjects should have been taught in high school, but this is only possible if the educational system includes a senior high school. We noted a report that Philippines is having difficulty in gaining professional recognition abroad because the number of years spent in high school is less than all the other countries. While other countries have 12 years of preparation prior to college, Philippines only has ten.
On the micro level, the group discussed the importance of museums in heritage education, the importance of local language, and the importance of heritage in conducting research.
There was a suggestion to make museum more interactive, so as to communicate more to the students; however, the main problem found in making museum a part of heritage education is the fact that schools have started to discourage visits to the museum for safety reasons.
In teaching heritage, local language should never be substituted for English. An English translation may be provided but people should be very familiar with the local terms. The group noted that local newspapers have started using Vis-Lish and Tag-Lish. Even carpenters no longer use the local terms for parts of the house, instead they use English words which are inaccurately spelled or pronounced.
Finally there is the need to emphasize that knowledge of heritage can actually facilitate research work particularly in data gathering. The group noted the experiences of students who deal with other people for interviews or group discussions. Their lack of sensitivity to culture in general has led to many complaints thereby putting the reputation of the schools at risk.
The workshop was facilitated by no less than Prof. Fernando Zialcita, author of the book "Philippine Ancestral Houses." It was an eye-opener for most of us, including the facilitator. We hoped that the workshop output can somehow find its way to implementable plans of action.
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