By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Note: This was my position statement during the National Forum on the Language of Teaching and Learning in the Philippines organized by the Department of Education (DepEd) and USAid on February 22, 2021. Key officials of the DepEd led by Secretary Leonor Briones and the biggest names in the MTB-MLE movement in the country including lawyer Magtanggol Gunigundo I who authored the bill that became the language policy were on hand but the statement went unchallenged.
Promise 2: Quicker learning of new languages
First, in 2018 when the first batch of MTB-MLE products took the Grade 6 NAT, the national mean percentage score (MPS) in English went down by 5.71 or 14.14 percent which was unprecedented the previous record being the 5.26 or 8.89 percent setback in 2006. It is very telling that in 2017 when elementary products of the 2002 Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) took the test for the last time, the English MPS gained 0.57 or 1.53 percent. (The 32 points loss in 2016 is excluded from the reckoning because the cause was extraordinary.)
It was a case of cause and effect given the marginalization of English in the curriculum due to the adoption of the MTB-MLE as follows: daily time allotment for English subject reduced from 100 minutes to 43.33 minutes; reading in English deferred to second semester of Grade 2: English as medium of instruction deferred to Grade 4. There simply is no way the products of MTB-MLE could overcome the crippling handicaps imposed by the curriculum to be at par let alone outdo products of the PBE in English proficiency.
Second, in its study Starting Where the Children Are: A Process Evaluation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Implementation, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) found that public school pupils have lost their competitiveness in regional contests conducted in English because private school contestants understand the questions better as their schools have not adopted the MTB-MLE and continue to use English as medium of instruction from Grade 1.
Promise 3: Leads to better overall academic performance
First, the overall MPS in Grade 6 NAT when the first batch of MTB-MLE products took the exams in 2018 went down from 39.95 to 37.44 or by 2.51 points or 6.28 percent.
Second, our Grade 4 pupils in the 2019 TIMSS ate the dust of their counterparts in 2003 scoring 61 points or 17.03 percent lower in Mathematics and 83 points or 25 percent in Science. The country was last in both subjects in 2019 while it was third to the last in both subjects in 2003.
Promise 4: Better scores in the TIMSS and other international assessment
Debunked by 2019 TIMSS results as shown in preceding. More than two months after the results of the 2019 TIMSS was released the DepEd and other MTB-MLE advocates who have been blaming English for our poor performance in the TIMSS have yet to explain how come the lopsided scores in 2003 and 2019 in favor of PBE.
The claim that newly introduced educational programs take time before they could deliver does not apply in this case because we do not only speak of unattained targets but of performance falling below the level before SY 2012-2012 as I have already shown. With regards to reading, not only has the MTB-MLE failed to deliver on its promise of quicker learning of the skill but it the mass production of non-readers in our schools escalated during its implementation.
The claim that MTB-MLE is sound and that all the problems we are seeing now are only due to snags in implementation is not true. Even if the implementation of the MTB-MLE becomes trouble-free, it cannot make Grade 1 pupils read in English simply because in the MTB-MLE Curriculum, reading in English will only be taught starting in the second semester of Grade 2. It is very likely that among all countries joining international student assessments, the Philippines is the only one which does not teach reading in the test language in Grade 1 making it the favorite for the cellar.
In sum, if the DepEd recommends and Congress will approve the extension of the MTB-MLE, they will be prolonging the life of a complete failure and knowingly perpetuating the severe handicap of our school children in reading literacy which is suicidal considering the high correlation between reading literacy and success in other subjects (Reading for change: Performance and engagement across countries, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Page 15). The decision will be in flagrant defiance of the intent of RA No. 10533 to provide quality education that is globally competitive and likewise of the Constitution because reading in English only in Grade 3 can never constitute quality education specially so that Filipinos have been reading in the language in Grade 1 for more than a century until the DepEd, through the K to 12 Curriculum, decided there is no more need for the younger generation to read in English in Grade 1.
The DepEd and its allies cannot run away from the irreparable flaws of the MTB-MLE forever. It is only a matter of time before the public could connect the fact that in no time in the history of mass education in the country did we have school children weaker in English than now to the sacrifice of English in favor of Mother Tongue in the curriculum despite the fact that English is the main medium of instruction in our education system, is the countrys local and international assessment language and the global lingua franca.**
