Senate OKs bill ending mother tongue requirement for kinder to Grade 3 students
MANILA, Philippines — The Senate on Tuesday approved on third and final reading a bill to discontinue the mandatory use of the mother tongue as the medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, was formalized by Senate President Francis Escudero, a day after the opening session of the 19th Congress.
"Mother tongue as the medium of instruction is not a one-size-fits-all solution for every classroom. It is effective only in monolingual environments where learners are uniformly native speakers of the same mother tongue," Gatchalian said.
According to Gatchalian, the measure was only effective in schools where everyone was using the same language, more so in far-flung areas.
The new bill allows the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education, as outlined in Republic Act 10533 (the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013), to be applied in monolingual classes provided the orthography is developed and documented by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), and that literature in the language and culture is available.
The bill also mandated the Department of Education to review the implementation of the program three years after the law is passed.
"The review shall further include recommendations on whether to continue or discontinue the optional use of the mother tongue as a medium of instruction in monolingual classes based on the review conducted by the DepEd," the bill stated.
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