Pablo John to review law on use of mother tongue

DEPUTY Speaker Pablo John Garcia (Cebu, 3rd) has asked for a review of the Mother Tongue-Based Multi-Lingual Education program of the Department of Education which refers to the form of schooling that begins with the language that is most familiar to the children.

“I think it should be revisited, reviewed and if necessary, a bill should be filed to amend that portion of the law,” Garcia said on the sidelines of the House committee on Visayas Development meeting held at the Provincial Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

“If necessary, we will file a bill to amend the law because it does say there in the law that the first stage of education should be in the mother tongue. The same law also says that education should be globally competitive,” Garcia added.

Last December 2019, the lawmaker’s eldest sister Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, announced that the Provincial School Board approved a resolution implementing a moratorium on the use of Cebuano and Filipino in teaching the core subjects beginning June 2020.

The move came after the Philippines ranked poorly in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa).

Conducted every three years since 2000, Pisa is a worldwide study intended to evaluate educational systems by measuring the scholastic performance on mathematics, science and reading of 15-year-old students.

The Philippines scored the lowest in reading comprehension, the main subject assessed, out of 79 participating countries.

It also placed second lowest in Math and Science.

Republic Act 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 was meant to strengthen the Philippine education system and its curriculum.

The law also increased the number of years for basic education.

Section 2(c) provides that the State shall “make education learner-oriented and responsive to the needs, cognitive and cultural capacity, the circumstances and diversity of learners, schools and communities through the appropriate languages of teaching and learning, including mother tongue as a learning resource.”

Section 2(a), on the other hand, provides that the State shall “give every student an opportunity to receive quality education that is globally competitive based on a pedagogically sound curriculum that is at par with international standards.”

“I don’t know how to balance those two purposes,” said the younger Garcia.

“I believe that a lot of the decline, especially in our comprehension, has to do with these frequent changes in the educational system,” he added. (RTF)

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