By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Note: The LSP is one of the most ardent supporters of the Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). We sent this letter which is self-explanatory to them last March 30, 2021 but although acknowledged by the office of their Vice President Aldrin Lee, we never received a reply until now.
It appears that the LSP has no qualms about holding a position it cannot defend. You brand House Bill No. 6405 “perversely retrogressive” but you cannot answer findings that our basic education had gone to the dogs during the implementation of the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). During the National Forum on the Language of Teaching and Learning in the Philippines held by the Department of Education (DepEd) and the USAID on February 22, 2021, your member Dr. Jose Ma. Nolasco, in reaction to my position statement proving that that the MTB-MLE failed to deliver on all its promised benefits listed in DepEd Order No. 74, series of 2009, could only baselessly taunt that I had forgotten that in 100 years the previous language policies have not delivered. He said that even after hearing the report that the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) conducted in 2019 showed there were more learners who could not read that year than there were uncovered in the 2013 EGRA earlier in the forum.
Indeed, if we speak of students who could not read, the MTB-MLE delivered more in nine years than all the previous language policies combined delivered in 100 years. On the basis of the findings in the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) that 27 percent of our Grade 5 pupils cannot read, it can be inferred that the number of non-readers during the implementation of the MTB-MLE is in the millions, an unimaginable occurrence under all the previous language policies — except under the Policy on Bilingual Education starting in 2001 after the DepEd tinkered with the “No Read, No Move” Policy.
Citing the results of Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) in 2003 and 2019 where the incidences of elementary school graduates who could understand what they read were 46 percent and 52.4 percent, respectively, and studies he did not specify, Dr. Nolasco boldly concluded in his position statement during the forum that the most important reason our education programs fail is “Teacher Factor,” explaining it’s not the fault of the teachers themselves but primarily of the deficient preparation they obtained from the teacher-education institutions they graduated from.
In the case of the explosion of the non-reader population during the implementation of the MTB-MLE, Dr. Nolasco failed to consider the following among other facts which give the lie to his alibi: teachers in private and public schools come from the same colleges thus received the same training; with the higher pay and better benefits in public schools, the trend is for private school teachers to migrate to public schools; and public schools have more qualified teaching personnel because it is a common practice among private schools to hire unlicensed teachers due to economic constraints. Given these circumstance and if “Teacher Factor” were to blame for the failure of the MTB-MLE to deliver on its promise for quicker reading, private schools should also have non-readers and they do not have any. The truth of the matter is having spurned the MTB-MLE, private schools continue to make their Grade 1 pupils read in English, a milestone which only happens in Grade 3 under the MTB-MLE.
Apart from the 27 percent who could not read, the SEA-PLM also found out that 29 percent of our Grade 5 pupils are reading well below their grade level. For sure, this is not the kind of reading literacy quality you are telling the world the MTB-MLE offers but on the ground, it is practically the only kind its curriculum assures given the fact that it only introduces reading in English which happens to be our local and international assessment language in the second semester of Grade 2.
More than half of Filipino public school students either cannot read or are reading below par under a language policy that is supposed to quicken the learning of reading and all the LSP can do is unfairly smear the old language policies, the teachers and their alma maters. That you are pushing for the retention of the MTB-MLE when you could not disprove the allegation that the language policy is helpless against the rapid spread of illiteracy in our schools or is even the main cause thereof with defenses that hold water only means you do not care whether or not Filipino children learn to read. Were you concerned about the deteriorating literacy of our school children and believed that the MTB-MLE has nothing to do with the problem, you would have called for a probe on the reading crisis to identify the factors and come up with solutions and in the process, clear the MTB-MLE of blame. But three years after the presence of high school non-readers was exposed in the media, the LSP continues to be mum on the issue and not even the staggering finding in the SEA-PLM could force you to break your silence on the subject.
Your apathy on the literacy plight of our school children is also obvious in the fact that some of your members criticize the current model of the MTB-MLE as deficient in many ways but never touch on how come the language policy is failing to teach more than a fourth of pupils to read. Neither do you see anything wrong in the delayed teaching of reading in the primary medium of instruction and test language despite the mounting evidence of its adverse effect on the competitiveness of our students in international student assessments.
It was more of the same during the meeting of the technical working group (TWG) for House Bill No. 6405 on March 19, 2021. Just like all the other MTB-MLE advocates present, you only limited yourselves to extolling the language policy and declaring your opposition to the bill. No attempt at all to address the serious issues raised against the MTB-MLE.
Apparently, what’s paramount in the mind of the LSP is to keep the MTB-MLE experiment alive regardless of the actual impact on learners. The MTB-MLE experiment did not end with its adoption in SY 2012-2013 because it continues to this day with the control classes – the private schools – outperforming the experimental classes by a mile. The only way to change the damning results of this phase of the experiment is for the DepEd to order private schools to strictly comply with the policy including with its delayed English beginning reading timetable.
Dr. Eduardo Alicias, Jr., a retired professor in the College of Education of the University of the Philippines-Diliman and a book author, and I are inviting the LSP to a debate on the effects of the language policy on actual learning and learners. If you are calling, please give the word through this email address so we can agree on the mechanics and other details.
Attached are our papers read in the above-cited DepEd MTB-MLE forum and the March 19, 2021 House Bill No. 6405 TWG meeting for your information and rebuttal.**
