Mother tongue-based education program needs to be fine-tuned, not replaced

THE Senate has approved a bill that will discontinue the use of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3.

Senate Bill (SB) 2457, introduced by Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Ramon Revilla Jr., will bring back Filipino or English as the language for teaching in those elementary levels. Regional languages will be relegated to being an “auxiliary” mode of instruction.

A similar measure was approved by the House of Representatives last year. Its main proponent, Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo, believes the “removal of the mandatory use of mother tongue as a medium of instruction is not only practical, but inclusive as well, especially in a multilingual and diverse nation like ours.”

Gatchalian said experiments by the Department of Education prove that the mother tongue “is only effective in school settings when everybody is using the same language, especially in rural areas.” It doesn't work well in multilingual classes, where learners speak different languages or dialects, he argued.

SB 2457 also calls for a review of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) policy three years after the bill's enactment. The review will cover the assessment of students, teacher recruitment and matching, development of learning resource1s published in the mother tongue, capacity-building efforts for teachers and funding requirements.

The MTB-MLE was first implemented during the 2012–2013 school year. It was a difficult transition; English had been used in teaching Math and Science, and Filipino in all other subjects since 1974. Education traditionalists voiced the strongest opposition.

Before the MTB-MLE was adopted, several models were pilot-tested. One was tried out in Lubuagan town, Kalinga province.

The mother tongue was used in all subjects, including Science and Math, for 4.5 hours a day, and Filipino and English for an hour daily.

After only two school years into the program, students in the Lubuagan project were academically outperforming their counterparts who were not taught in their mother tongue. More significantly, it stimulated parent participation and “strengthened the community's connection to their local roots and culture.”

Vice President Sara Duterte turns over the reins of the Department of Education to former senator Juan Edgardo Angara in a ceremony at the DepEd central office in Pasig City on July 18, 2024. PHOTOS BY ISMAEL DE JUAN

More than a decade later, however, the MTB-MLE continues to be hounded by festering issues like inadequate teacher training and lack of materials.

Gatchalian highlights these flaws in making a case for shelving the MTB-MLE. “Discontinuing the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 is consistent with the evidence: that mother tongue-based learning is effective only in monolingual classrooms,” he said.

MTB-MLE may be flawed, but it still provides a viable platform for projecting an education strategy that works best for the country.

One study says “languages-in-education are never just about languages alone; they are about struggles for power and for contending visions of the nation. MTB-MLE promises to address different forms of inequities in Philippine society, but ideological and structural challenges against it are massive and relentless.”

Strengthening the MTB-MLE program is a far better option than replacing it, as some lawmakers are strongly suggesting.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara, together with Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) Acting Chairman Don Artes, Quezon City 2nd District Rep. Ralph Tulfo and other officials, paint school chairs during the kick-off of 2024 Brigada Eskwela with the theme ‘Bayanihan para sa Matatag na Paaralan,’ at Commonwealth Elementary School in Quezon City on July 20, 2024. Meanwhile, employees of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company, with support from various civic groups, conduct their own Brigada Eskwela activities inside the Manuel G. Araullo High School at United Nations Avenue in Manila. Brigada Eskwela is a nationwide school maintenance program that engages all education stakeholders to contribute their time, efforts, and resource1s to ensure that public schools are all set for school opening. PHOTOS BY JOHN ORVEN VERDOTE AND MIKE ALQUINTO

Unesco has been championing mother language-based education, saying it “improves access to and inclusion in education, particularly for population groups that speak nondominant, minority and Indigenous languages.” It points to studies showing that multilingual education “can boost classroom participation, improve retention rates and encourage family and community involvement in education.”

Fostering a thriving multilingual education requires “robust policy support, advocacy and innovation,” the UN agency said. “This includes adopting policies that promote mother language education from early childhood…”

“It also involves recruiting and training teachers and community members competent in learners' mother tongues, as well as exploring innovative solutions, such as partnerships with digital platforms, to meet diverse language needs.”

Unesco's recommendations already provide the guidelines for fine-tuning the MLB-MLE to make it more responsive to the challenges facing Philippine education. Such an approach, however, will require a more comprehensive evaluative process and the wider participation of stakeholders in policymaking.

We can only hope the government is up to the task.

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Mother tongue-based education program needs to be fine-tuned, not replaced

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