A one-year reading handicap under the ‘Matatag’ curriculum

The “Matatag” curriculum of the Department of Education (DepEd) starts the English reading competency in the first semester of Grade 2, an improvement on the K-12 curriculum which introduces the competency in the second semester of Grade 2. Nonetheless, the timetable all but guarantees that Filipino students will remain at the bottom of international assessments because they will be reading in the test language one year later than their counterparts from other countries.

With the Matatag curriculum retaining English as the primary medium of instruction from Grade 4 onwards, and the fact that the rule is for the primary medium of instruction to be the test language, English then becomes our test language in all the international assessments we’ve been joining as listed in DepEd Order No. 29, series of 2017.

The international practice is for schoolchildren to be taught to read in their primary medium of instruction in Grade 1, with most children in Vietnam, Japan, and Singapore already able to read in Grade 1. However, the Matatag curriculum defers English and Filipino reading competencies to Grade 2 to give way to developing first language literacy in Grade 1. The DepEd justifies prioritizing the first language by citing a World Bank (WB) finding that literacy in the first language “promotes learning outcomes in the L1 and in the subsequent second language (L2), as well as in other academic subjects, and promotes the development of general cognitive abilities.”

In giving credence to the WB study, the DepEd disregards two compelling local historical facts: First, since the time of the American occupation until the DepEd scrapped the “No Read, No Move” policy in 2001, Filipino children have been successfully taught to read in English in Grade 1. They also started learning English the moment they entered first grade, and were unquestionably more proficient in English than the products of the Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE), which exclusively teaches first language literacy in Grade 1.

Second, from its launch in School Year 2012-2013 until now, the MTB-MLE has been a total failure as detailed in the letter “Use of first language or mother tongue does not work in the Philippines” (Inquirer, 9/5/23). Please note that the letter has not been refuted.

The DepEd also knows that Filipino students struggle with reading in English. DepEd Memorandum No. 173, series of 2019, states: “Low achievement levels in English, Math and Science appear to be caused by gaps in learners’ reading comprehension. This means there are many low-performing learners who [cannot] comprehend Math and Science word problems that [are] written in English.”

In her briefing regarding the performance of the country in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) titled “Situating PISA with Sulong EduKalidad,” then DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones admitted that based on the results of the PISA, “reading in English is clearly a weakness of our learners.” It’s a no-brainer that the realities described by DepEd Memorandum No. 173 and by Briones would have been significantly minimized had our students been reading in English starting in Grade 1.

And yet in defiance of logic and historical facts, here we are, a tailender in international assessments, obstinately insisting that our students should learn to read in the test language (English) a year later than children of other countries. Given the strong correlation between performance in reading and success or failure in academics as cited in OECD’s “Reading for change: Performance and engagement across countries,” report, the one-year gap in reading experience in the test language is insurmountable.

While the Matatag curriculum is still being pilot tested, the DepEd should be made to explain how the curriculum could fulfill the mandate of Section 2 (a) of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 on offering “quality education that is globally competitive” to our students, when it imposes a one-year reading handicap on them vis-à-vis their counterparts from other countries.

Estanislao C. Albano Jr.,
[email protected]