The appropriateness of using the Mother Tongue (MT) as medium of instruction (MOI) in multilingual contexts is neither supported by theory nor evidence. Yet, Republic Act (RA) No. 10533 or the “Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013” mandated the implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 3.
The Philippines is classified as a highly multilingual society by various language mapping data. Language data from the 2020 Census of Population and Housing shows that there are about 245 reported languages in the country.
Currently, the Department of Education (DepEd) officially covers only 19 languages in implementing MTB-MLE, accounting for a measly 8% of the total languages reported in the census.
Further analysis also shows that some of the widely spoken languages such as Boholano, Masbateno, and Kankanaey are not covered by the 19 languages used by the DepEd in the implementation of MTB-MLE.
School-level data from different parts of the country further show the linguistic diversity in schools. For example, language mapping data from Kalinga detected 22 languages spoken by the learner population. In Marahan West Elementary School, a small school in the remote areas of Davao City, there were 9 languages detected in the school with only 238 Key Stage 1 learners.
DepEd has issued Department Orders prescribing the use of the lingua franca as MOI in areas where there are three or more MTs (multilingual classrooms). However, the 1953 UNESCO study, the same basis used in adopting MTB-MLE in RA 10533, itself identified the adoption of the lingua franca as MOI as one of the grounds for the abandonment of the use of the MT as MOI.
The other grounds identified by the UNESCO include: (1) shortage of educational materials; (2) multiplicity of languages in a locality; (3) multiplicity of languages in a country; and (4) shortage of trained teachers.
In a 2019 study conducted by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, its findings yielded that only 9% of the surveyed schools complied with the 4-minimal requirements for good implementation of the MTB-MLE where schools are expected to: (1) write big books on language, literature and culture; (2) document the orthography of the language; (3) document the grammar of language; and (4) write a dictionary of the language.
These findings were corroborated by the Committee on Basic Education’s Key Stage 1 class observations and focus group discussions in Pangasinan, Cebu, Davao and Muntinlupa City.
Finally, to verify these researches and findings on the ground, the Committee has conducted four public hearings on Proposed Senate Resolution No. 51, House Bill No. 67172, and my Privilege Speech on the “Observations on the Implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Program – Theory vs. Implementation” delivered on May 31, 2023.
All MT studies presented during these public hearings were conducted in monolingual settings. The other qualitative accounts that were presented to the Committee advocate the use of the MT in linguistically homogenous settings such as rural communities and communities of ethnolinguistic minorities.
Thus, Senator Win Gatchalian has filed Senate Bill No. 2457 propose this legislation to remedy and seek the faithful implementation of MTB-MLE under RA 10533 by redefining its application to monolingual classes from Kindergarten to Grade 3. This will result in reverting to Section 7, Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution on the MOI (“xxx Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English, xxx”) to be used in Key Stage 1.
If necessary, the regional languages, or any of the Filipino languages for that matter, “shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction” – a flexible approach to instruction as provided under the Constitution itself.•