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Manila. Mother tongues will replace the national language and English in the first three grades of state elementary schools in the Philippines, as part of a new government policy aimed at boosting early learning skills among children.

Of the 170 region-based tongues spoken, 11 main ones cover most of the population and the switch to them in the early grades will start in the new school year in June for Grade 1 pupils. It follows a successful experiment by the education department to test mother-tongue teaching in 920 elementary schools nationwide last year.

Teachers are being told to expect more participation in the new curriculum year from pupils who are too reluctant to speak in class using Filipino or English if neither language is used at home.

“The problem with the bilingual policy was that comprehension was very low in the early grades,” said Rose Villaneza, head of the Department of Education’s Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education programme. “Using familiar mother tongues will help students freely express ideas — and that’s important for cognitive development.”

Tagalog — the language of central and southern Luzon — is the most widely spoken. It was chosen as the national language nearly 70 years ago by former president Manuel Quezon to help unify the archipelago with deep-rooted regional ties.

Tagalog-based Filipino is the home language of only about 20 per cent of the 94 million people in the country, where nearly as many speak Cebuano. Early learners are often taught in their community language as well as Filipino and English.

The switch in June will begin with six-year-olds at Grade 1 in elementary education. The program will be expanded to seven- and eight-year-olds by mid-2015 in nearly 40,000 elementary schools — attended by 13 million pupils — across the country.

At age nine, the medium of instruction will switch to Filipino and English.

The education department sees no major hiccups, like linguistic gaps, because most languages spoken in the Philippines are variations of the chosen ones and almost all Filipinos will be familiar with at least one.

“These will be the base for a multilingual education using Filipino to develop our national identity and English to be globally competitive,” Villaneza said.

Pupils in early grades in the Philippines were taught in local languages until the early 1970s, when the Ferdinand Marcos administration began the march for bilingualism in Filipino and English.

Concerns over slipping English standards — blamed by some on a declining quality in English teaching and less English spoken on local television — prompted the previous administration to reinforce English-medium education.

These days, around 70 per cent of the high-school curriculum — including math and science — is taught in English, and the rest in Tagalog-based Filipino.

The education authorities hope that the new system will help improve comprehension and critical thinking skills in early grades, which in turn will help reverse a decline in math and science standards.

University student Sheila Trillanes — an Ilonggo speaker studying to become a teacher — says this will “make it easier for students to grasp the lessons being taught.”

Villaneza said it had been impossible to ignore compelling local and international evidence showing that using first languages in early education is crucial for developing a child’s mind and self-confidence before embarking on a multilingual path.

The World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization back the process of beginning learning in mother tongues.

New textbooks are being prepared by academics and education officials. Each of the 11 languages will have its own edition, using regional cultural references, such as for food, customs and folklore. But this will take several years to complete.

A bigger concern is whether the policy sticks, because the government has flip-flopped in education over the years to get the mix right.

Villaneza believes this one is here to stay.

“The results of the pilot study were an eye-opener not just for teachers, students and parents, but also for the local authorities and congressmen,” she said. “So it’s off to a good start.”

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.