Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Title
Language and Sustainability
Publication Date
2023
Abstract
The English language poses a dilemma in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially for education in countries with high multilingualism, high poverty and unequal schooling, such as the Philippines. This chapter considers Goal 1 (reducing poverty), Goal 4 (promoting educational quality) and Goal 10 (reducing inequalities) in relation to what has become an array of executive orders, regulations and laws that have shifted in the political winds, even as the judiciary has tried to navigate a measured course. It underscores how the primacy of English in the national consciousness, tied to global markets, undercuts multilingual policies based in empirical findings that children learn best in a language that they understand. The current MTB-MLE policy, moving instruction into English and Filipino beyond grade 3, and the pro-English message it conveys, falls short of providing the large and linguistically diverse population of less-privileged Filipino children with the multilingual skills they need to participate in the local, national and global economies. In the end, the policy fails to fully realize the promise of the SDGs in promoting educational quality essential to reducing poverty and inequalities.
Comments
This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the chapter entitled In Pursuit of Sustainable Educational Development: The Philippines and the English Dilemma from the book Language and Sustainable Development (Lisa J. McEntee-Ataliani & Humphrey Tonkin eds., 2023) published by Springer Nature. The final version is available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-24918-1.