Top-down language policy implementation in the Philippines: How policy implementation is support by top-down initiatives and from-the-side actors

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Problematizing Education Reform: Implementing Multilingual Education as Change from Above, from Below, from the Side — or a Combination?

Proposal

Mother Tongue-based Multingual Education has become a primary focus within the current Education for All initiative, which was renewed in the new Sustainable Development Goals. These documents state that provision of quality education for all learners must include learning through the mother tongue as well as learning other languages. As such, the Philippines Department of Education has recently initiated a top-down change in language in education policy from a dual language bilingual immersion policy to a mother tongue-based multilingual education policy (DepEd EO 74, S. 2009). In actuality this is a double top-down policy change as politicians also crafted a law (Republic Act 10533) to ensure that the policy is never overturned.

The intent of the policy change is to improve learning outcomes among young Filipino learners through beginning schooling in the mother tongue and adding the national language, Filipino, and English as second languages before using those languages for instruction. While a history of national level discourses considered the language of instruction issue, the masses remain generally uninformed of the rationale of the policy and the supporting research. Such lack of information impacts the perception of the policy resulting in various layered levels of implementation. Even with reforms in top-down DepEd training, teachers and principals claim insufficient knowledge and training in implementing the policy. Thus key players from the side, such as university professors, entire university departments, and language organizations, have increased partnership with DepEd to ensure ongoing development for the program toward sound implementation.

This paper considers how various actors from the top, the bottom and the side respond to the policy and impact implementation. The top-down policy ignites a new, encouraging perspective among Filipinos to embrace their multiple identities, including local language identities, in new ways that challenge previous deeply cultivated English identities. The policy inadvertently begins a new era of building capital in non-dominant languages through growing social participation from the side in conjunction with the top.

The paper frames this discussion within multiple lenses: societal power relations, globalization, and decolonizing education. An exploration of societal power relations provides analysis of how Filipino non-dominant language speakers have been positioned through previous top-down language policies created by and for the elite, and how this has changed with the new MTB MLE policy. Considering globalization and the ensuing power of English provides a glimpse into how Filipinos view their own mother tongues within a global hierarchy of languages. Finally, the perspective of decolonizing education aims to work from the bottom, the side and the top in contributing to more equitable educational opportunities and creation of capital in non-dominant languages.

This paper is based on the author’s extensive work in the Philippines interacting with key actors as well as her recent doctoral research (Dekker forthcoming). Data sources include interviews, analysis of Filipino scholarly publications, newspaper articles, and personal observations. The paper provides a comparative perspective across the Philippine archipelago.

Dekker, Diane (forthcoming) Filipino teachers negotiate their identities on a new mother tongue-based multilingual education policy landscape. University of Toronto Dissertation.
DepEd (Department of Education of the Philippines) (2009) Order No. 74 2009. Institutionalizing mother tongue-based multilingual education (MLE).
http://www.deped.gov.ph/cpanel/uploads/issuanceImg/DO%20No.%2074,%20s.%202009.pdf
DepEd (Department of Education of the Philippines) (2013) Republic Act 10533. Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. http://www.gov.ph/k-12/#RA10533

Author

• Diane E Dekker, OISE, University of Toronto