BY ALEX ALAGON
If you walked up to Socrates in ancient Athens and asked, “What’s the return on investment for this philosophy subject, sir?” He’d probably squint at you, tilt his head, and ask why you’re so obsessed with coin-counting when you could be asking what makes life worth living.
We seem to have tragically misplaced Socrates’ point somewhere between the Industrial Revolution and the latest Commission on Higher Education (CHED) proposal to cut General Education units from 36 to 18. Somewhere along the way, we collectively decided that the purpose of higher education is to produce “employable graduates.” We turned colleges and universities into employment agencies, students into “labor force,” and professors into skills-trainers.
But if we trace education back to its ancient roots, we find a radically different vision — one where the goal was not to plug you into the economy, but to unplug you from ignorance.
Let’s start with the Greeks — because they practically invented the Western concept of higher learning. The Greek term for education was paideia, and it wasn’t about learning to operate a loom or count pottery shards. It was about arete — excellence of the soul. Plato’s Academy, founded in 387 BC, wasn’t a vocational school for philosophers looking to land gigs as royal advisors (though that was a nice side-effect). It was a place to contemplate the Forms, to understand Justice itself, and to train philosopher-kings — leaders who could see beyond shadows on a cave wall.
Aristotle’s Lyceum was no different. He divided knowledge into three tiers: theoria (contemplation for its own sake), praxis (practical action guided by ethics), and techne (craft or skill). Notice which one he put on top? Theory. Thinking. Understanding the why before the how. For Aristotle, the highest human function wasn’t earning a paycheck; it was exercising rationality to achieve eudaimonia — human flourishing. Try putting that on a resume.
Even the word “liberal” in “liberal arts” comes from the Latin liberalis, meaning “worthy of a free person.” The liberal arts were designed for free citizens, not slaves. Why? Because slaves learned specific trades — blacksmithing, weaving, farming. Free citizens, on the other hand, needed education to govern, to deliberate, and to participate in the public square. They studied grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. Not because employers demanded it, but because a free person ought to know the structure of the cosmos and the art of persuasion to keep tyranny at bay.
Let’s hop over to ancient China, where Confucius was busy shaping an educational philosophy that would last millennia. In the Confucian tradition, education was never about producing better factory workers (because factories did not exist then). It was about producing persons of moral character. The curriculum revolved around the Six Arts: ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. Notice the mix? Physical, mental, and deeply moral.
Confucius famously said: “The gentleman understands what is right, whereas the petty man understands what is profitable.” Ouch. If he were alive today, he’d probably look at our skills-based curriculum and weep.
Meanwhile, in ancient India, the Gurukul system saw students living with their teachers in forest hermitages. They studied the Vedas, logic, grammar, astronomy, and philosophy. The ultimate goal? Moksha — spiritual liberation. Yes, they learned practical medicine and mathematics (they invented the zero, after all), but they were byproducts of a deeper quest for truth, not the primary objective.
So, what happened? We industrialized.
The Prussian education model of the 19th century — designed to produce obedient soldiers and punctual factory workers — became the global blueprint. Students were sorted by age, marched to bells, and taught to follow instructions. The British Empire exported this model to its colonies, including ours, to create clerks who could file paperwork but never question the Crown.
In the Philippines, the Americans supercharged this with the Thomasite curriculum. They taught us English, hygiene, and industrial trades. They taught us American history, not our own. The goal was never to produce independent, philosophically-minded revolutionaries. It was to produce reliable, English-speaking laborers for the colonial machine.
Fast forward to 2026, CHED’s proposal to slash Humanities and History feels like a spiritual sequel to that colonial logic. We’re stripping away the paideia to double down on the techne. We’re telling students: “Your worth is measured by your job title. Your mind is a tool. Your soul is irrelevant.”
Ancient education understood that a healthy society requires three things: citizens who can think, leaders who can reflect, and communities that share moral values. You can’t get those from a spreadsheet. You get that from studying Rizal not just as a name on a street or monument, but as a flesh-and-blood revolutionary who grappled with colonial oppression.
Authoritarians and corporate overlords love an uneducated workforce. It is easier to exploit people who don’t know history, who can’t spot propaganda, and who think critical thinking means choosing between two brands of detergent. Conversely, free societies depend on citizens who can question authority, sniff out disinformation, and demand accountability.
That is not “impractical.” That is the most practical thing there is.
Higher education is, and has always been, the art of becoming fully human. It is the space where we step back from the noise of daily survival to ask: What is justice? What is the good life? What do I owe my community?
When CHED tries to sell us a leaner, market-ready curriculum, they are selling us a smaller vision of ourselves. They are telling us that we are cogs in a linear, capitalist machine. But history tells otherwise. Plato’s students and Confucius’ disciples didn’t become factory workers. They became leaders — precisely because they understood that wisdom precedes wealth, and character outlasts currency.
Our universities are not factories. Let us not measure everything in units and outputs. Factories produce things. They do not produce people who can look at power and challenge it.
That’s what history is for. That’s what the humanities are for. That’s what education is for. To find a better way to live and to be human.
Education is supposed to prepare students not just for work, but for life, citizenship, and leadership.
And if we lose that, we have lost the whole point.
