TL;DR: BA History is prescribed by CHED Memorandum Order No. 38, series of 2017. CHED's sample curriculum totals 107 units: 36 General Education, nine core courses worth 27 units (including 12 units of Spanish), six major courses worth 18 units split between area and Philippine thematic history, cognates, a practicum and a Senior Thesis. There is no PRC board exam for historians - History is not among the Commission's forty-six Professional Regulatory Boards. Graduates go into teaching, museums and heritage work, research, media, and the foreign service.
History is one of the few undergraduate degrees where the CHED order actually reads like it was written by people who care about the subject. It describes the field as "the study of the past, encompassing every dimension of human experience," and it builds a curriculum around a specific claim: that a historian is someone who can find sources, criticise them, and write from them. Everything in the programme structure follows from that.
The CHED Order Behind BA History
CHED Memorandum Order No. 38, series of 2017 carries the full title "Policies, Standards and Guidelines for the Bachelor of Arts in History (BA History) Program." It was issued under Republic Act No. 7722 and by virtue of Commission en banc Resolution No. 231-2017 dated 28 March 2017.
Schools with an existing BA History programme got three years to comply in full, but the minimum curricular requirements applied from Academic Year 2018-2019. Like the rest of CHED's 2017 batch, it is outcomes-based: the order sets the graduate competencies and offers a sample curriculum, and schools may build their own route to the same outcomes.
The degree name it prescribes is simply Bachelor of Arts in History (BA History).
The 107-Unit Structure
CMO No. 38 states the total plainly: the programme "has a total of one hundred seven (107) units, of which thirty six (36) are general education courses," with the remaining 71 units distributed across core, major, cognates, thesis, practicum, PE and NSTP.
| Component | Courses | Total units |
|---|---|---|
| General Education | as per CHED requirements | 36 |
| Core courses | 9 | 27 |
| Major courses | 6 | 18 |
| Cognates / electives | 2 | 6 |
| Practicum | 1 | 3 |
| Senior Thesis | 1 | 3 |
| Physical Education | 4 | 8 |
| NSTP | 2 | 6 |
| Total | 107 |
Core courses
The nine core courses named in the order are Introduction to the Study and Writing of History, Historical Methodology, Philosophy of History, Survey of Asian Civilizations, Survey of Western Civilization, and Spanish, which is listed as four subjects. That is the part prospective students usually do not expect - 12 of the 27 core units go to language.
It is not decorative. One of the programme's intended learning outcomes in the CMO is to "acquire a reading knowledge of a language necessary for research," and a serious chunk of Philippine primary material from before the twentieth century is in Spanish. If you want to work with archival documents rather than only with published secondary literature, this is the requirement that makes it possible.
Major courses
The six major courses are drawn from two pools. Area courses cover Island Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Modern East Asia, History of the United States, Modern and Contemporary Europe, and Islamic History as Global History. Philippine thematic courses cover Pre-16th Century Philippines, Philippine Economic History, Philippine Cultural History, Philippine Diplomatic History, Philippine Social History, Nationalism and Revolution, and Ethnic Histories.
You do not take all of them. You take six, and your choices are effectively your specialisation - which then shapes what you can credibly write a thesis on.
CHED's figures above are the sample curriculum. Universities routinely run larger programmes. Confirm the current programme of study with your target school.
The Practicum and the Senior Thesis
Two requirements distinguish this degree from a generic humanities course.
The practicum. CMO No. 38 says the student "should get exposure in research, teaching, management of documentary materials and other historical records in repositories, museum work and other related works." That is three units, and it is the clearest signal in the order of where CHED expects graduates to end up. A school with real placements at the National Archives, the National Library, a provincial museum, or a university special-collections unit is offering something a school without them is not.
The Senior Thesis. Described as the culmination of the programme, requiring the student "to write a major historical essay/senior thesis/oral history project, under the guidance of a faculty adviser." Note the oral history option - it is a genuine third path, and it matters in a country where a great deal of local and community history was never written down.
If the research-writing side worries you, our guide to reviewing related literature covers the mechanics.
Does AB History Have a Board Exam?
No. The Professional Regulation Commission runs forty-six Professional Regulatory Boards, covering professions from Accountancy to Veterinary Medicine, and History is not one of them. There is no historian's licence, no PRC exam, and no legal barrier to working as a researcher, curator, archivist or writer without one.
The one licence that does come up in this field is for teaching. Professional Teachers is one of the forty-six boards, and anyone teaching in Philippine basic education needs to pass the Licensure Examination for Teachers. A BA History graduate who wants to teach Araling Panlipunan in a DepEd school generally needs to satisfy the education-unit requirements before sitting the LET - the requirements are set by the Board for Professional Teachers, not by the history department, so confirm the current rule with PRC before assuming a route. Our LET guide and BSEd guide cover that pathway.
Teaching at college level runs on a different track entirely: a master's or doctorate rather than a licence.
Where BA History Graduates Actually Work
CMO No. 38 lists the career paths CHED had in mind when it wrote the programme: teachers at various levels, school administrators, museum and cultural workers, historical researchers for business or public agencies, media practitioners, legal aides and assistants, historical consultants, and the foreign or diplomatic service.
A few of those deserve unpacking:
- Heritage and museums. Curatorial, collections, education and public-programmes work at national agencies, city museums, university museums and private foundations. The practicum is the on-ramp.
- Archives and records. Repository work at national institutions, corporate archives and church archives. The Spanish requirement is a genuine differentiator here.
- Research and consultancy. Historical research commissioned by companies, LGUs and law firms, including land and boundary history.
- Media. Documentary research, editorial and publishing work, fact-checking desks.
- Foreign service. History is a common background for the diplomatic career track, which has its own separate examination administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
- Law. History is a standard pre-law degree because the core skill - reading conflicting sources and building an argument from evidence - transfers directly. Philippine law schools admit graduates of any bachelor's degree; admission requirements are set by the Legal Education Board and by each school, so check the current policy of your target school. See strand for law and best law schools in the Philippines.
We are not printing salary ranges for these roles. Heritage, archives and research pay varies too widely between government plantilla posts, project contracts and private commissions for a single figure to be useful, and we would rather omit it than invent it.
What a Real University Curriculum Looks Like
CHED's 107 units are a floor. The University of the Philippines Diliman publishes an official BA History checklist through its Office of the University Registrar showing a 141-unit programme, approved by the University Council in May 2018.
That checklist makes the Spanish requirement concrete: 12 units of Spanish in the first year alone, split across two semesters. It also breaks the history courses into Philippine area electives, Asia area electives, Europe and Americas area courses, plus cognate courses that the checklist requires be taken in a single discipline. Philippine thematic offerings listed include the economic, cultural, diplomatic and social history of the Philippines, Philippine nationalism, the history of women in the Philippines, indigenous ethnic history and environmental history.
The gap between 107 and 141 units is the honest headline here: what CHED prescribes is a minimum, and a research-heavy university will ask considerably more of you.
How to Compare History Departments
CMO No. 38 sets qualifications that make useful questions on a campus visit. The dean or head of the college must hold an earned doctoral degree in the social sciences, humanities or communication, with at least five years of teaching experience and two years of administrative experience.
Beyond that, three things separate a strong history programme from a weak one:
- Library and archival access. History is a source-driven discipline. Ask what primary material students can actually reach, whether physically or through subscribed digital collections.
- Practicum partners. Ask which repositories, museums and agencies have taken their students in the last two years, by name.
- Which major courses actually ran. A prospectus can list a dozen area and thematic courses. Ask which ones were offered in the last four semesters.
For the broader question of whether a school is properly authorised, see CHED-accredited schools and how to verify school legitimacy.
Is AB History Right for You?
- You will read and write constantly. The core sequence goes from Introduction to the Study and Writing of History straight into Historical Methodology. Volume of reading is the workload.
- There is a language requirement. Budget real effort for Spanish rather than treating it as a filler subject.
- The degree ends in original research. A senior thesis or oral history project with a named adviser.
- There is no licence. Your credibility comes from your thesis, your practicum placement and any published or exhibited work, not from a board result.
- Many paths continue into graduate study. Museum curatorship, university teaching and serious research posts generally assume a master's.
Still deciding between fields? Our what course to take in college guide is the natural next read.
Comparing schools? Browse schools on SchoolFinderPH for programmes, tuition and locations in one place.
Sources
- CHED Memorandum Order No. 38, s. 2017 - PSGs for the Bachelor of Arts in History (BA History) Program (official PDF)
- Commission on Higher Education - 2017 CHED Memorandum Orders index
- Professional Regulation Commission - Professional Regulatory Boards
- University of the Philippines Diliman, Office of the University Registrar - BA (History) checklist (official PDF)
- UP Diliman Department of History - Bachelor of Arts in History
