Cavite State University – Tanza campus

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ABOUT THE LANGUAGE POLICIES AND PROGRAMS OF

LAOS AND THE PHILIPPINES

Shaina Leila A. Garcia

BSEE 2-1

202109146

Jhollie Ann Delgado

BSEE 25
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Language is a vital part of human’s lives. It plays a big role on how people are living in

today’s world. It is important to know how language can be used and perceived within the

country to be able to address the issues we have been encountering. With the use of

implementing the language policy, it helps the institute to reach their high-level goals. In

Philippines, our official language are Filipino, and until otherwise provided by law, English. While

in Laos, Lao is the official language.

According to the Constitution of 1991, Lao is the official language. The Constitution and

other policy documents, however, provide some support to “ethnic groups” and “ethnic group

areas,” but there are no references to language use. In Lao PDR children are instructed in the

official language, Lao, from the beginning of primary school. Yet 43 per cent of school children

are learning to speak, read and write Lao as a second language. These learners are at an

enormous disadvantage and often have significant linguistic difficulties – contributing to learning

breakdown. Low expectations, discrimination, and a lack of role models and cultural peers mean

that children who do not speak Lao as their first language are more likely to drop out of school.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) is home to languages from at least four

different ‘genetic’ groups: Tai (southwestern and northern branches), Mon-Khmer (Bahnaric,

Katuic, Vietic, Khmuic, and Palaungic branches), Hmong-Mien (Hmongic and Mienic branches),

and Tibeto-Burman (Lolo-Burmese branch). The precise number of languages spoken in the

country is not known, due mainly to a lack of empirical data. Estimates vary between around 70

and around 120 distinct languages (Ethnologue 2004 lists 82).

In order to promote Lao as the national language, the education policy requires that it be

used as the medium of instruction in schools. This become problem as there are 82 officially

recognized languages in Lao PDR and many different dialects. All are living languages, but not

all have scripts. Although the law states that minority languages can be used for teaching, in

reality the Lao language is used. Mother-tongue teaching is difficult, as it is not clear which

languages should be used. Statistics show that non-Lao speaking children frequently
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experience early learning failure. This is partly responsible for the high drop-out and repetition

rates, especially in primary grades one and two. This proves costly to the Ministry of Education,

as high repetition rates mean the per-capita costs of education are also high. The socio-

economic development of the country is suffering and the rights of minority peoples are being

overlooked. Effective interventions to minimize the inherent problems of this policy need to be

developed.

The Ministry of Education is taking appropriate measures to minimize the negative

effects of the policy, and to consolidate and improve the national language by preparing

teachers to use suitable methodologies to teach Lao, encouraging to use a variety of teaching

and learning aids and giving a proper training in active learning methods and activities, which

allow children to link what they see and hear with what they experience – essential for language

development.

While on the other hands, Philippines official languages are English and Filipino. English

has been the official language for over a century now; Spanish only ceased to be an official

language in 1973; while Filipino only became an official language in 1941. Thus, Filipino as a

co-official language has been around for only about 70 years. But, again, because of the

disruption brought about by the temporary status of Pilipino-2 that was supposed to be replaced

by Filipino-1, it would be more reasonable to start the reckoning from Filipino-2 and say that

Filipino has been a co-official language for only about 30 years. In addition to English and

Filipino, the 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines recognized the regional

languages as official auxiliary languages in their respective regions.

Thus, The BEP (Bilingual Education Program of the Philippines) was institutionalized in

1974 and since then, it has been the broad framework of the educational system in the country.

Prior to 1974, English had been practically the sole medium of instruction in the Philippines

since 1901 when the public education system was put in place by the Americans.
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The Bilingual Education Program of the Philippines (BEP), where English is the medium

of instruction in Science and Mathematics and Pilipino or Filipino, the national language, in all

other subjects, has been recognized as one of the earliest comprehensive bilingual education

experiments in the world.

Since 2009, the BEP has been supplanted by a new order from the Department of

Education (DepEd) supporting the implementation of Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual

Education (MTB-MLE) at all levels of education. This order is based on the assumption that

mother tongues are the most effective media for facilitating learning throughout primary

education. This institutionalization of MTB-MLE challenges the politically entrenched

assumption of BEP: that only two languages in Philippine education – English and Filipino, the

national language can facilitate learning among Filipinos and articulate their identity as a nation.

The Filipino language is similar to Tagalog – but not exactly the same. Filipino is a

modernized variant of Tagalog that incorporates aspects of other Philippine languages as well

as Spanish, English, Chinese and Malay, but the two are mutually intelligible and the names are

often used interchangeably while the Lao language is closely similar to Thai Language thus the

majority of Laotians understand spoken Thai and Lao literate people can read Thai. Now, the

primary language of the Lao people is also spoken in the Northeast Thailand, referred to as Isan

language.

To sum it all up, we are able to see how the implementation of language policy varies

from one country to another. This may be explained by the fact that language policy is often

based on contingent historical reasons. Laos known as an individualistic country, opposite of the

collectivist culture that the Philippines has.