Bill removing mother tongue in education lapses into law

A measure discontinuing the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3, and making it optional in monolingual classes, has lapsed into law.

- ALEXIS ROMERO

The law, now known as Republic Act 12027, lapsed into law without President Marcos' signature last Oct. 10, a copy of the measure posted on the Official Gazette showed.

Under the Constitution, the President has 30 days to sign or veto a measure transmitted to his office. If the President does not act on the bill within 30 days, it would lapse into law.

The new law halted the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from kindergarten to the first three years of elementary education, prescribed by Section 4 of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013.

"The medium of instruction shall revert to Filipino and, until otherwise provided by the law, English, pursuant to Article XIV, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution. The regional language shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction," the law read.

The principles and framework of the mother tongue-based multilingual education may be applied in monolingual classes, provided that the mother tongue to be used as medium of instruction shall comply with certain requirements.

The requirements specified by the new law are an official orthography developed and published by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF); officially documented vocabulary published by the KWF like glossary, dictionary, encyclopedia or thesaurus; literature on languages and culture, such as big and small books, picture stories or wordless picture book; grammar book and availability of teachers in the school who speak and are trained to teach in the mother tongue.

The law defined a monolingual class as a group of learners who speak the same mother tongue and are enrolled in the same level in a given school year.