Cordillera advocacy group urges rejection of Mother Tongue policy

A finding of the state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) that private elementary schools find delivering content in English more effective than in the vernacular as their pupils outdo public school pupils in contests conducted in English is one of the new evidences levelled by the Cordillera Advocates for Real Education (CARE) against the Mother Tongue policy.

In a position paper submitted to the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture to support the bill of Baguio City Congressman Marquez Go seeking the abolition of the Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE), the staunch foe of MTB-MLE cited a recent study of the PIDS which showed that private schools stick to old bilingual policy, one result of which they consistently win in contests conducted in English as their students understand the questions much better.