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Chronic underfunding killed once-celebrated mother tongue education
By Creselda Canda-Lopez
“While using child’s first language in instruction is consistent with theories in pedagogy, it has been difficult to implement due to highly centralized structure of DepEd,” Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) in its Year One report led filing of bill discontinued use of mother tongue instruction from kindergarten to Grade 1.
Government’s axing of mother tongue instruction for kindergarten to grade 3 has drawn protests from education experts and advocates, who assailed officials for simply ditching policy rather than fixing its funding and implementation issues.
Two faculty members of University of the Philippines Diliman specialize in language studies and education, as well as Filipino advocacy group Tanggol Wika, believe recently passed law discontinuing use of mother tongue in early education has stymied program’s potential benefits before they could be fully realized.
Bill downgrades mother tongue instruction as option in class, lapsed into law last week without president’s signature.
For years, debates over value of nationwide policy compelling use of mother tongue (language first learned at home) in classrooms have drawn rare divide in education sector.
Studies on the program show mixed results. Data Department of Education (DepEd) presented in congressional hearings found no evidence mother tongue education benefited multilingual classes with diverse home languages. In contrast, research on monolingual classes all students share home language painted opposite picture.
Very inclusion of t mother tongue in K to 12 curriculum was not without basis. Briefer from DepEd itself in 2016 cited experiments in Iloilo and Rizal from 1948 to 1966 show students taught in their native language mostly outperformed those taught in English.
Consensus among education experts, even before passage of law removing mother tongue policy, was DepEd was simply ill-prepared to implement it on national scale: structure-wise, personnel-wise and budget-wise.
Under soon-to-be-defunct Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE),legislated through passage of K to 12 law, DepEd used 19 languages. This includes Tagalog, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Iloko, Bikol, Ybanag, Sinugbuanong Binisaya, Hiligaynon, Waray, Bahasa Sug, Maguindanaoan, Maranao, Chavacano, Ivatan, Sambal, Akianon, Kinaray-a, Yakan and Sinurigaonon.
“Top-down, DepEd assigned official mother tongue for each area without language mapping and allowing flexibility and giving guidance to multilingual areas,” said Mercedes Arzadon, faculty member of University of the Philippines College of Education.
Arzadon, has long specialized in mother tongue education research, also pointed to lack of specialists in the department to lead overall implementation of MTB-MLE.
“There has been no champion or expert for Multi-Language Education ,MLE from within system…for long time, it was led by someone in position without any real power… I wish there could have been at least consultant,” Arzadon said.
She stressed that former regional director and undersecretary who studied principles of the program after leaving the department “said it’s his first time to understand the program.”
“If only there had been funding, they could have created task force like they are doing now with PISA… would have allowed for development of materials appropriate for language and for training teachers,” Arzadon said, adding only Grade 1 teachers were trained in 2011.
Amid criticisms DepEd was too centralized in its approach to mother tongue education, Arzadon said department could have created supervisor positions focused solely on mother tongue instruction. Instead, policy became “extra work” for Filipino and English supervisors.
She also noted long hours DepEd’s MLE focal persons put into creating primers on using mother tongue to bridge to Filipino and English. “They just finished, and it takes time to implement,” she said.
In 2008 report aimed to build on momentum of growing pushback against “pro-English proponents” in education, then-Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino Chairman Rolando Nolasco set out four conditions he said would guarantee mother tongue education’s success.
“One, there has to be good curriculum, one that is cognitively demanding…two, we will need good teachers who are competent in required language, content and methods, three, there must be good teaching materials , error free… four, community support and empowerment must be present ,” Nolasco said.
Over decade later, in Senate hearing in 2022, DepEd bared only 78,872 of its targeted 305,099 educators were trained for use of mother tongue as medium of instruction.
State think tank Philippine Institute of Development Studies also found in study less than 10% of over 16,000 schools it analyzed had fully complied with main aspects of MTB-MLE implementation, namely in orthography, grammar, learning resources and dictionary.
This is why Tanggol Wika sees “abolition” of MTB-MLE as step backward, when documented evidence of DepEd’s shortcomings had long been public knowledge.
“Any shortcomings in implementation of MTB-MLE from 2013 to 2023 should not be blamed on the program itself but on lack of funding for education system,” Tanggol Wika said.
Lack of learning materials and insufficient training for teachers “results directly from failure of Malacañang” to make once-celebrated policy success, Tanggol Wika added.
“Previous DepEd secretaries did not address reasonable demands of teachers concerning MTB-MLE and entire education system… positive impact of MTB-MLE would have been more significant if government had fully funded all necessary components for its proper implementation since it began in 2013,” Tanggol Wika said.
Removing mother tongue instruction, for Aldrin Lee, linguistics professor published open letter on the matter, was tantamount to subjecting students to “forced use of English” already seen in several facets of public life.
From attending court hearings to applying for jobs, Filipinos are forced to use English, language not their own, he said.
“New ideas they conceive and develop using our language require them to think about how to translate them into English, leading many to simply abandon their thoughts if it seems too difficult,English is significant barrier to growth of Filipino knowledge.”
While new law appears to favor Filipino, Tanggol Wika said it is “closer to maintaining status quo of English-centric language policy” as it does not require use of Filipino outside of subjects where it is already used.
“Initiatives related to MTB-MLE have been lifeline for several endangered languages in the Philippines; thus, murder of MTB-MLE seems like murder of these endangered languages as well,” Tanggol Wika said.
Arzadon believes four conditions Nolasco set for mother tongue education to be success is happening, “but it takes time because situation is broad and diverse.” She added: “For example, in Benguet, many people were initially angry about changes but later accepted them.”
“Maybe it’s about community support and empowerment because you can’t rely on DepEd alone for such radical change..’. there needs to be strong support for multilingualism from government, media, and other sectors,” she added.
The way forward now is for regions and provinces “worked hard to make it happen,” such as Bicol Region and Western Visayas, among others, to hopefully continue implementing the program, Arzadon said.
Whether or not schools and teachers will on their own and without impetus to do so build on their gains remains to be seen.
But unspoken loss is clear: Philippines was first in Southeast Asia to have law explicitly calls for use of mother tongue education.
Now, it is one of many that do not have one.
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