EDCOM 2: Senate OKs discontinuation of mother tongue as medium of instruction from kinder to grade 3
July 24, 2024
Senate OKs discontinuation of mother tongue as medium of instruction from kinder to grade 3
The Senate of the Philippines on Tuesday approved on final reading Senate Bill No. 2457 which seeks to discontinue the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3. The bill also provides for its optional implementation in monolingual classes, reverting the medium of instruction to Filipino and English.
"This bill complements EDCOM 2's initiatives to assess and evaluate the curriculum and instruction in basic education. We identified that a key challenge in implementing the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) lies in the centralized structure of education governance within the Department of Education (DepEd), which struggles to accommodate the linguistic diversity of the country," says EDCOM 2 Executive Director Karol Mark Yee.
The bill is championed by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) Co-Chairperson Senator Win Gatchalian. This comes after the approval of House Bill No. 6717 of the House of Representatives last February 2023, which also seeks to suspend the use of the mother tongue as the primary medium of instruction in early-grade education.
EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson and co-author of HB 6717 Rep. Roman Romulo emphasizes the significance of this legislative measure. "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. The classrooms cannot mandate a mother tongue to a learner because that defeats the philosophy. Let us be unified and use Filipino and English as mediums of instruction in accordance with the Constitution."
The implementation of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education or MTB-MLE Program of the Department of Education (DepEd) began during the 2012-2013 school year under DepEd DO No. 16, series of 2012. RA 10533 subsequently formalized the shift to mother tongue-based multilingual education, requiring children in kindergarten and Grades 1 to 3 to be taught in their respective regional or native tongue languages.
By theory, children in the initial years of schooling can comprehend the curriculum if they are taught in the language they already know and understand. However, difficulties were observed in its implementation in the last decade, especially in linguistically diverse areas of the country.
In a privilege speech delivered last March 31, 2023, EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson Senator Gatchalian explained, "Again, we must remember that one of the strongest theoretical selling points of the mother tongue policy is that it is better to teach learners in the language they already know and understand. However, as we can see, this theory does not hold in practice among linguistically diverse learner populations - and in the Philippines, this is a common circumstance. Instead, we are left with situations in which large proportions of learners are forced to study materials and participate in class discussions using languages with which they are not familiar. These are learners being left behind."
In the sponsorship speech Senator Gatchalian delivered last November 29, 2023, he further elaborated the significance of the issue as the Philippines is classified as a highly multilingual society by various mapping language data. The 2020 Population and Housing Census revealed that around 245 reported languages in the country. Despite this, DepEd only covers 19 languages in the MTB-MLE program, which represents just 8% of all languages listed in the census.
Consultations conducted in different regions of the country revealed problems in bridging between Key Stage 1 (kindergarten to Grade 2) where the mother tongue is the medium of instruction for math and science, and abrupt switch to English as medium of instruction used in Key Stage 2 (Grade 4 to Grade 5). Teachers also take extra time explaining the same lesson twice in 2 different languages, which could have been spent in other lessons for the day.
Another significant issue observed in the implementation of the MTB-MLE is the scarcity of materials and textbooks in the mother tongue. The disconnect between the language learners are familiar with and the language in which their textbooks are printed causes difficulties not only for learners but also for parents and teachers.
"More than a decade has passed since we implemented MTB-MLE, but a vast majority of our schools are not prepared to roll it out because of issues such as inadequate teacher training and lack of materials. 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," Senator Gatchalian said.
Senate Bill 2457 is the first bill approved on the third and final reading under the Third Regular Session of the 19th Congress.
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