Chapter I

THE PROBLEM

The recent passing of Republic Act 10533, known as the Enhanced

Basic Education Act of 2013, requires Mother-Tongue Based

Multilingual Education (MTBMLE) in all schools. Specifically,

this means “. . . kindergarten and the first three years of

elementary education, instruction, teaching materials, and

assessment shall be in the regional or native language of the

learners” (Republic of the Philippines 2013).It is based mainly

on the simple argument that pupils learn best through the

primary or home languages that they bring to school.In some

contexts, MT-based MLE refers to the use of students’ mother

tongue and two or more additional languages as Languages of

Instruction (LoI) in school. In other contexts, the term is

used to describe bilingual education across multiple language

communities—each community using their own mother tongue plus

the official school language for instruction.