Senate approves bill discontinuing use of mother tongue as medium of instuction in lower grades

Senate approves bill discontinuing use of mother tongue  as medium of instuction in Kindergarten to Grade 3


Schools will soon stop using mother tongue or regional languages from Kindergarten to Grade 3 following the Senate's final approval of a bill on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, that seeks to end its mandatory use.

The Senate has approved a bill on its third and final reading that makes using the mother tongue as the medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 optional.

Senate Bill 2457 was passed with 22 affirmative votes, no negative votes, and no abstentions.

The bill proposes reverting to Filipino and, as stipulated by the 1987 Constitution, English as the primary media of instruction. Regional languages will serve only as supplementary tools for teaching.

The bill mandates the Department of Education (DepEd)  to review the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in monolingual classes three years after the law takes effect. The review will assess learner outcomes, teacher recruitment and placement, the development of mother tongue learning materials, teacher training, and the funding needs for the program.

This review must be reported to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives by June 30 of the year following the review.

Senator Joel Villanueva, a co-author of the bill, highlighted that "language mapping" will help group students of the same grade level who share a common language into monolingual classes, enhancing the effectiveness of the MTB-MLE program.



No comments