LUDABI hits Gwen anew

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia’s recent statement on the academic performance of students did not seem to sit well with the Lubas sa Dagang Bisaya (LUDABI), an association of artists and personalities who aim for the preservation of Bisaya as a language.

Garcia wants the Department of Education to stop the practice of promoting undeserving students to the next grade level.

She said giving a passing grade for the effort despite poor academic performance only encourages mediocrity.

“We are encouraging mediocrity, and that is not what Cebu deserves. This is, for me, the greatest province here ever was. We should institute a standard of excellence here,” Garcia earlier said.

Lawyer Leo Zaragoza, LUDABI national president, said an examination or evaluation, which uses foreign language, should not be a basis for determining the level of comprehension of students.

“Why did we allow ourselves na testingan tag bright kita when using a foreign language?” he said.

Citing “World Studies,” Zaragoza said children understand and perform well in academics when using a language their accustomed to and a language that is used by the people around them.

“The level of comprehension is better when answering tests using the mother tongue,” he said.

Also, he said students should not be fined for speaking the mother tongue in school.

“Unsay pasabot sa multa nga nakahimo ka’g krimen? Where in the world is speaking your own language a crime? Only in the Philippines,” he said.

Republic Act 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 instructs for the use of mother tongue as the medium of teaching from kindergarten to Grade 3.

The use of a transitional mother language like Filipino and English from Grades 4 to 6 is also prescribed under Section 4 of RA 10533.

But the Cebu Provincial School Board recently issued a resolution supposedly reinstituting English as basic medium of instruction in schools under Cebu province division starting next school year.

The board made the move after results of an examination conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development placed the Philippines in the lowest rank among countries that participated in the Reading Comprehension category.

The study revealed that the Philippines had an average reading score of 340, which was the lowest among the countries surveyed and also below the OECD average of 487.

OECD tested around 600,000 15-year-old students in 79 countries through the 2018 Program for International Student Asssessment.

Garcia, co-chair of the board, earlier said she thinks that the reason why Filipino students are lagging behind their international counterparts is because of the confusion brought about by the implementation of the mother tongue system. /KQD (FREEMAN)a