Lost in translation: The case for mother-tongue instruction

For years, our basic education system has insisted that children in kindergarten and Grades 1-3 learn exclusively in English—an approach at once colonial in origin and deeply counterproductive. On the one hand, it outright bans instruction in the very languages spoken at home; on the other, it leaves young learners grasping at a foreign tongue before they have mastered the fundamentals of reading and reasoning.

- NIGHT OWL ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

Recent data from the Philippine Statistics Authority sound an alarm. In 2024, nearly 18.96 million Filipino junior and senior high school completers—graduates of our basic education system—could not read and understand a simple story. At the same Senate hearing chaired by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, it emerged that only 79 percent of senior high graduates are "functionally literate;" the remaining 21 percent walked across the graduation stage effectively unable to comprehend basic texts. Even more troubling, some 5.8 million Filipinos lack basic literacy—unable to read and write with understanding and perform elementary arithmetic. These numbers belie decades of schooling and point squarely at a foundational mismatch: children are being taught in a language they have not yet acquired.