The proposed measure removing the “mother tongue” instruction in kindergarten to Grade 3 lapsed into law on October 10 without the signature of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.

Republic Act 12027 or the Act Discontinuing the Use of Mother Tongue as Medium of Instruction makes the use of regional languages optional in monolingual classes.

Under the new law, the medium of instruction shall revert to Filipino and English while the mother tongue will serve as “auxiliary media of instruction.”

Section 2 of the law states that mother tongue-based multilingual education may be applied in monolingual classes provided that it complies with the following requirements:

* An official orthography is developed and published by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF);

* An officially documented vocabulary published by the KWF such as glossary, dictionary, encyclopedia or thesaurus;

* Literature on languages and culture, such as big books, small books, picture stories, or wordless picture books;

* Grammar book; and

* The availability of teachers in the school who speak and are trained to teach in the mother tongue.

A monolingual class is composed of learners who speak the same mother tongue and are enrolled at the same grade level in a given school year.

The Department of Education, in consultation with the KWF, shall develop a language mapping policy within one year from the effectivity of the law.

It shall also implement a language mapping framework to properly identify and classify learners based on their mother tongue in order to systematically determine the existence of monolingual classes each school year. (PNA)