Filipino pupils in Kindergarten and Grades 1 to 3 are better learners when the language used in their classrooms is the language that they speak at home.
While the Filipino people’s attention was focused on the Congressional hearings on the alleged misuse by Vice President Sara Duterte of hundreds of millions of Department of Education (DepEd) funds, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was allowing a Congress-approved bill to quietly lapse into law.
This is very unfortunate because the new law – Republic Act 12027 – amends the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (Republic Act 10533), which, as its name suggests, was concerned with this country’s basic education system, i.e., the system of educating pupils for Kindergarten to Grade 3.
R.A. 10533 mandated the use of regional or mother languages – Cebuano, Ilocano, Bicolano, Kapampangan, Ilonggo etc. – along with English and Filipino, in Filipino children’s first four years of education. According to the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF), this country has 135 spoken languages. The Mother Tongue – Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) basic education program was implemented by DepEd in the 2012-2013 school year.
R.A. 10533 was drafted and enacted principally because a disconnect was found in the course of MTB-MLE’s implementation. The disconnect was between the language that was familiar to Kindergarten-to-Grade 3 pupils and the language used in their text books and learning materials. Additionally, the implementors of the MTB-MLE program found a scarcity of textbooks and learning materials written in the various mother tongues/regional languages.
R.A 12027 has not scrapped the MTB-MLE program. It says that the mother tongue/regional language may continue to be used as a medium of instruction in a monolingual class, i.e., a class composed of same-grade pupils who speak the same regional language.
Whether the MTB-MLE program will be fully reinstated will depend on the results of a review that R.A. 12027 requires DepEd to undertake. The review will cover the learner assessment process, teacher recruitment, development of learning resources published in the mother tongue/regional-language, teacher capacity-building and funding requirements. Thereafter, DepEd will submit to the President of the Philippines and to Congress a report on its review, which must contain a recommendation on whether the use of the mother tongue/regional language as a medium of basic instruction in monolingual classes should be allowed continued.
R.A. 12027 provides that the use of a mother tongue/regional language as a medium of basic education in monolingual classes should be supported by a writing system (orthography) developed and published by KWF, a documented vocabulary published by KWF, a grammar book and literature on languages and culture. There should be an adequate number of teachers who speak and are trained to teach in the mother tongue/regional language.
Additionally, R.A. 12027 orders DepEd and KWF to do two things: (1) develop within one year a language mapping policy and (2) develop and implement annually a language mapping framework to determine the existence of monolingual classes.
A child’s basic-education years—from Kindergarten to Grade 3 – are the most important years for his or her education. It is during those years that the foundation of a child’s future educational performance is laid. A flawed basic education system will impact negatively on the subsequent phases of a Filipino child’s education. How can he or she cope with the class work of Grade 4 of Grade 5 if he or she did not fully comprehend the lessons taught in kindergarten and Grades 1 to 3? The bad effects cascade down the education line.
The theory of the authors of the Enhanced Basic Education Act was—and still is—that Filipino pupils in Kindergarten and Grades 1 to 3 are better learners when the language used in their classrooms is the language that they speak at home. MTB-MLE’s proponents argued – and still argue – that basic education in this country would be more successful if pupils did not have to shift from speaking, say, Cebuano or Bicol at home to speaking English or Filipino at school.
I think that MTB-MLE’s proponents are on the right track. There is much supporting evidence in other countries for their theory.
The Philippines continues to fare badly in international education rating programs, such as the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organization for Economic Corporation’s and Development (OECD). With that in mind, the government —the Executive Department and Congress – should be prepared to undertake experiments intended to improve basic education in this country MTB-MLE is one such experiment.
(llagasjessa@yahoo.com)
