Thursday, December 14, 2006 Talk back: English proficiency By Ted Lugtu
REP. LUIS Villafuerte hit the nail right on the head when he blamed our country’s worsening proficiency in English, both oral and written, to the 32-year-old bilingual policy on educational instruction adopted by government.
According to the March 2006 survey by the Social Weather Station, our national proficiency in English has declined by 12 percent in the last 12 years.
In the results of the 2006 National Achievement Test of the Department of Education, Grade 6 pupils and fourth year high school students garnered only 54.05 percent and 47.73 percent respectively.
Rather poor rating by any standard.
The government adopted in 1974 the simultaneous use of English and Filipino in our educational system. Since then, subjects like Social Studies, Character Education, Values Education, Industrial Arts, Home Economics and Physical Education, were all taught in Filipino.
The rest of the academics, upon which our rating in worldwide educational competitions really lie (English, Math and Science), suffered not only due to the resulting lack of concentration where it matters but worse because of students being taught in “Taglish” (a blending of English and Tagalog).
An example is a special class in elementary science in Cebu. The subsequent poor ratings of the supposedly highly select pupils that made it to the said science classes have resulted in the stopping of further entries into Grade I starting two years back.
Simultaneously, those currently enrolled but who fail to make the minimum requirement of 85 percent average every yearend will be returned to regular classes. Today, their number has so dwindled that in 2006 only a small batch has been left.
According to parents of the pupils ejected from the science classes, one likely cause was that too much time and attention was given to subjects that are taught using Tagalog as medium of instruction.
Not only does it distract the pupils from the truly essential subjects (English, Math, Science plus Computers), the poor parents were made to spend more time and money than necessary to keep up with special projects, assignments, etc. that fall in the Tagalog usage category.
Villafuerte deserves to be heard on his proposal to have our educational system revised by law so that English will be the main medium of instruction in our schools, leaving only Tagalog when taught as a subject.
As Villafuerte emphasized, it was not “just about restoring the English ability of our students but to reinforce their skills in disciplines that essentially require English mastery, such as in mathematics and science.”
The House already approved House Bill 132-7 last September but the measure is still pending approval by the Senate. Surely this is one instance where our lawmakers should forget politics and instead concentrate on what’s really needed by our poor nation.
