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Saturday, November 19, 2005
Roperos: English and nationalism
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
IT’S a ridiculous thought, Filipinos now scrambling to learn how to speak English. It’s more ridiculous to learn that of the call center applicants in Cebu, hardly five in a hundred could be taken in.
The batting average is decidedly low, and it is ridiculous to think such a situation could exist in a country that has long been claiming to be the only English-speaking country in Asia. Is the claim true or false?
The discussion on the English proficiency of Filipinos has been going on through the years, as nationalistic intellectuals frowned on the use of English as sole medium of instruction. They say it does not promote the search for national identity in our culture and the arts, as well as a sovereign nation.
Ironically, as the nationalists battled opponents in the halls of Congress and in the education department, the English language soared high in the international firmament, the international language of communication, as well as of business, and in science and technology.
The other day, in a keynote address before the 19th Philippine Advertising Congress held here in Cebu, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, president of Ayala Corp., pointed out that our human resource is one of the country’s distinctive advantages in the competitive global struggle for economic survival.
However, the same could be dissipated unless something is done to sustain the competency. And he pointed to the decline in our people’s proficiency of the English language as an example. The situation is said to have generated anxiety in the industrial sector for our schools inability to meet its demand.
Cebu was said to have been chosen as venue for this year’s Ad Congress because, “at least ten call centers set up over the past five years have led to aggressive recruitment for college graduates who can communicate well in English, deal with foreign cultures and be trained quickly in computer skills.”
But the demand for qualified labor far exceeds the supply. Nationwide, according to industry reports, the success rate of hiring has been a dismal five per cent or less.
The most relevant question to ask now is whether one’s proficiency in English acquired through efficient training in our classrooms make one less of a nationalist as our earlier self-proclaimed nationalists believed?
It was this belief that strongly drove them to advocate changes in our school curricula that would have entirely done away with the English language as a medium of instruction. The current state of English proficiency among our college graduates is basically a fallout of such bias for nationalism in schools years ago.
Didn’t Cebu province some years back ban the use of the national language in our public schools, and brought a case against the government in the Supreme Court?
Ayala highlighted the importance of developing our human resources as a means of growing out of mass poverty. He warned that unless our human resource “asset is supported by continuous training and education, the Philippines would continue to struggle with mass poverty.”
It seems that one need really not be inefficient and ineffective in speaking the English language or shun from acquiring the proficiency in speaking in our classrooms in order to be known as being deeply and utterly nationalistic.
Once can be proficient in English while loving our country more.
(November 19, 2005 issue)
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