LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION AND LITERACY: THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF THE REVISED MOTHER TONGUE-BASED MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION POLICY ON READING COMPREHENSION
Keywords:
Republic Act No. 12027, Linguistic Mismatch, MATATAG CurriculumAbstract
The Philippine education system is currently undergoing a significant policy shift following the enactment of Republic Act No. 12027, which repealed mandatory Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in response to a persistent 91 percent learning poverty rate. This study examines the long-term impact of this policy reversal on reading comprehension, specifically analyzing how linguistic mismatch between home and school languages influences academic outcomes under the newly implemented MATATAG curriculum. Adopting a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design, the study analyzed Philippine Informal Reading Inventory data from Grade 3 and 4 learners in the linguistically diverse Bicol Region, followed by thematic analysis of semi-structured teacher interviews. Quantitative results revealed a statistically significant comprehension gap, with learners in monolingual mother-tongue settings achieving "Instructional" proficiency, while those in mismatched default classrooms remained at the "Frustrated" level. Regression analysis indicated that linguistic mismatch acts as a multiplicative tax, explaining 48 percent of achievement variance and reducing scores by an average of 42 percentage points. Qualitative findings highlighted that while the MATATAG curriculum successfully streamlines decoding instruction, oral fluency and deep comprehension remain impaired in mismatched environments. The study concludes that without robust investment in localized instructional resources and formal bridging strategies, the transition to bilingual defaults risks institutionalizing educational inequality and failing to mitigate the national learning crisis. These findings offer critical insights for policymakers regarding the necessity of aligning instructional media with the linguistic reality of learners to ensure sustainable literacy gains.
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