The issue on mother tongue education all over again

Last of two parts

A close reading of the bill should make clear two important points that should still give hope to proponents of mother tongue education. First, in places where one language is the mother tongue of almost all, mother tongue education could carry on. Of course, this is contingent on the fact there are already sufficient resources (on this matter, the bill has clearly outlined what "sufficient" means) and qualified teachers to continue teaching in the mother tongue. And second, in places where mother tongue education could still continue, a language-mapping policy and framework will be implemented to "properly identify and classify learners based on their Mother Tongue to systematically determine the existence of monolingual classes per school year." It remains to be seen how this determination would be put into practice. Furthermore, there will be a review of the optional implementation of mother tongue education in those so-called monolingual classes every three years to not only assess how it could be improved but also to determine if it is ultimately unnecessary.