The Return of the Mother Tongue routinely fined for the “offense.

” I don’t think that experience

By: Randy David - @inquirerdotnetPhilippine Daily Inquirer / necessarily made us better speakers of English. But it certainly
developed in us a wrong-headed skepticism about the value of our
12:30 AM March 15, 2012
own languages and the ways of life in which they were embedded.
Something is about to happen in Philippine education
I have always believed that to speak a language is to be a
that may have a deep and enduring impact not only on the
member of a community; by speaking its language, we participate
intellectual development of Filipino children but on their
in the community’s evolving consciousness. The need to speak a
relationship with their communities as well. The Department of
language is proportional to our need to communicate with that
Education announced recently that from June this year, when the
community. Looking back at those years, I now believe that,
new school year opens, any of 12 major local languages spoken in
instead of strengthening the ties between school and community,
different regions of the country will be taught as a subject and
English-based basic education had the effect of restricting our
used as a medium of instruction from kindergarten to Grade 3.
connection to our communities. This is the exact opposite of how
This crucial shift, known as “Mother Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual
John Dewey imagined the ideal relationship between the school
Education” (MTB-MLE), is part of the K+12 basic education reform
and society. By imposing English as a medium of instruction, our
program. The new scheme has yielded positive results in 921
schools were, in a sense, producing a nation of
schools across the country where it has been piloted.
immigrants—individuals with little or no attachment to the places
The DepEd says: “Local and international studies have in which they were born and raised. The self-estrangement that
shown that using the language used at home (mother tongue) many young Filipinos feel today may have stemmed largely from
inside the classroom during the learners’ early years of schooling the institutional purging of mother tongues from the circuits of
produces better and faster learners who can easily adapt to learn our national life.
a second (Filipino) and third (English) language.” This is an insight
Fortunately, one never really loses one’s mother tongue.
that has long been documented by teachers at the University of
All it takes to reactivate it as a faculty is to listen to others speak it.
the Philippines Integrated School. But it has taken a while for it to
These days, because of the Internet, physical distance is no longer
gain traction in an educational system that remains bonded to the
a barrier to real-time communication. We can, without much
English language.
effort, become instantly reconnected to e-groups around the
The 12 mother tongues that will soon be harnessed for world that are devoted to promoting the use of our mother
classroom use are Tagalog, Kapampangan, Pangasinense, Iloko, tongues. It is a wonderful irony that globalization is reviving local
Bikol, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Waray, Tausug, Maguindanaoan, languages.
Maranao, and Chabacano. The mother tongue of a given region
But, the scars of neglect are typically borne by the
will be employed in all learning areas, except in the teaching of
language itself. Mother tongues get stunted when they are not
Filipino and English subjects. Filipino will be introduced during the
used, particularly when they are no longer written. When people
first semester of Grade 1 to develop oral fluency, while English will
complain that some languages are not complex enough to
be offered as a subject in the second semester of Grade 1. I am
communicate an intellectual culture, they forget that languages do
not familiar with the specifics of the program, but I expect that
not grow by themselves. “Every language,” says Steven Pinker, “…
provisions have been made for those schools in which most of the
is constantly under renovation. Despite the lamentation of
students come from migrant families whose mother tongue is
language lovers and the coercion of tongue troopers, languages
different from that spoken in the region.
change unstoppably as people need to talk about new things or
This fundamental change will require the production of convey new attitudes.”
new teaching materials and modules using local languages that
As a native speaker of Kapampangan, I look forward to
have long been marginalized as formal tools of communication
the literary resurgence that the return of the mother tongue to
and education. Those who were in grade school and high school in
our schools may trigger. The writing of teaching materials using
the 1950s will remember how local languages, except Tagalog,
our indigenous languages will definitely spawn a renewed interest
were explicitly banned from school precincts. It was a crazy era
in local history and culture. It will instill pride in our beginnings,
when pupils who made the mistake of shifting to the local
“dialect” in a moment of panic during classroom recitation were
and hopefully lift our nation from the morass of demoralization in
which it has long been stuck.
All this may or may not have been contemplated by the DepEd.
Indeed, it is enough that the program has for its principal goal the
liberation of our children from the double burden of acquiring
basic concepts using a language they are learning for the first
time. Still, there is no doubt in my mind that the shift to a mother
tongue in the early years of formal schooling will have
revolutionary consequences not only for Philippine education, but
also for the way we think of ourselves as a nation.
K to 12 kinks
By The Manila Times March 9, 2015
ACCORDING to an Inquirer news article, a group of
college professors, school staff and their supporters who call
themselves The Coalition for K to 12 Suspension called on
President Benigno Aquino 3rd to suspend the K to 12 program.
They vowed to challenge it before the Supreme Court “for failing
to protect the labor rights” of affected teachers.
Under the enhanced basic education program of the
Department of Education—called K to 12 or Kindergarten plus
Grades 1-12—a student will be required to undergo kindergarten,
six years of elementary, four years of junior high school and two
years of senior high school. The implementation of universal
kindergarten began in school year 2011-2012, followed by a new
curriculum for Grade 7 in school year 2012-2013. School year
2016-2017 will mark the nationwide implementation of the Grade
11 curriculum, to be followed by the Grade 12 curriculum in
school year 2017-2018. The Coalition for K to 12 Suspension will
file in the Supreme Court on March 12 a petition seeking a
temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction
against the program, according to Rene Tadle, who is also a
convenor of the Council of Teachers and Staff of Colleges and
Universities in the Philippines. The group would also hold a mass
action on May 9 to voice their opposition to the K to 12
curriculum.
In a press briefing, Tadle said the K to 12 law failed to provide
protection for the labor rights of the 56,771 teachers and 22,838
non-teaching personnel who stand to lose their jobs and their
hard-won security of tenure as a result of the program.
Because of the additional two years of high school, very few
incoming college freshmen are expected in 2016, the start of the
transition period for the program, leaving college professors with
little to do and opening up the possibility that colleges and
universities would lay them off or reduce their teaching load.
The loss of tenure also means the diminution of teachers’
benefits, which could lead to their underemployment and
contractualization, Tadle said.
“Even before 2016, teachers and non-teaching staff, together with
their families and dependents, have been suffering from undue
stress, anxiety and anguish, brought about by the specter of early
separation, forced retirement, constructive dismissal, diminution
of salaries and benefits, labor contractualization, and general
threat to self-organization,” Tadle said, reading from the coalition
statement.
But teachers cannot be laid off just like that. Indeed, no company
is allowed to lay off employees in lieu of anticipatory loss as it
would be in violation of Article 283 of the Labor Code.
Teachers who would be laid off because of the K-12
implementation have a legitimate case or grievance.
In a previous column I mentioned how some private colleges and
universities are quietly making adjustments to accommodate
students who intend to skip Grades 11 and 12 in order to make
sure they would have some college students during the crucial
transition or the years where there will hardly be any college
enrollees.
Schools stand to lose up to P150 billion due to decreased
enrollment over five years once senior high school is fully
implemented in 2016. The Coordinating Council of Private
Educational Associations (Cocopea) said that with the start of the
added two-year senior high school, colleges would have no
freshmen enrollees in school years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.
The decreased enrollment is expected to carry over in the next
three years or until school year 2020-2021, Cocopea said.
The Council of Teachers and Staff of Colleges and Universities said
that based on their estimates, universities and colleges will lose
500,000 freshman college enrollees and more than 300,000
sophomore college enrollees once the implementation of the
senior high school program starts in 2016. What happens if the
Supreme Court finds favor with The Coalition for K to 12
Suspension’s petition to stop the K-12 curriculum? As of now, it is
already being implemented. Another important question is
whether the government can find the P30 billion a year it needs to
spend until 2020 to meet the public classroom and staffing needs
for the K to 12 Program.
That is how much it needs according to a recent study released by
the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).
In a policy note, titled “K to 12 reform: Implications of adding
Grades 11 and 12 on the higher education sub-sector,” PIDS senior
research fellow Rosario G. Manasan said the government must
add some 23,812 classrooms and 38,708 teachers for school year
(SY) 2017 to 2018 period.
“The budgetary support needed for the SHS [senior high
school]program is estimated to be equal to P27 billion in SY
2015-2016, P37 billion in SY 2016-2017, P28 billion in SY
2017-2018, and an average of P33 billion over the SY 2018 [to]
2020 period,” Manasan said. Obviously, K to 12 can’t work without
teachers to teach subjects or classrooms to hold classes in.

There are so many kinks to the K to 12 curriculum that the

government has to iron out and I hope President Aquino doesn’t
just kick the can to the next administration.