New ‘Makabansa’ subjects for Grades 1 to 3

MANILA, Philippines — As part of the new basic education curriculum, the Department of Education (DepEd) will roll out the new Makabansa subject in Grades 1 to 3 that aims to develop “healthy, resilient and patriotic” students.

Makabansa will merge concepts previously taught in Araling Panlipunan (AP) and Music, Arts, Physical Education and Health (MAPEH).

“The goal of Makabansa is to instill in the young minds of students a deep understanding of self and collective identity as a Filipino rooted in them being a part of the community, town, city, province and even regions,” Jocelyn Andaya, director of DepEd’s Bureau of Curriculum and Development, explained.

She added that Makabansa is different from the old Makabayan subject, which lumped together Sibika at Kultura, MAPEH and Technology and Livelihood Education.

Those who took Makabayan received a combined grade for all three subjects that were taught separately, in many cases by different teachers.

“In Makabansa, we did not lump the subjects together. We used a transdisciplinary approach to string together different competencies in AP, Music, Arts, PE, Health and other subjects,” said the DepEd official.

AP will be taught as a separate subject starting Grade 4, which will further promote nationalism, patriotism and civic duty as Filipinos, Asians and citizens of the world.

The DepEd has yet to release the final curriculum for Makabansa but the draft released in April, when it was originally named Sibika, Kultura, Kasaysayan at Kagalingang Pangkatawan or SIKap, showed that various activities related to music, arts, physical education and health will be used to help students understand their identity and role in the community.

Filipino subjects’ removal

Following the launch of the revised curriculum, advocacy group Tanggol Wika expressed concern over the removal of the separate Mother Tongue subject in Grades 1 to 3 and of Filipino in Grade 1.

“The de-facto abolition of MTB-MLE (mother tongue-based multi-lingual education) in the new curriculum is bad. We have had some progress in MTB-MLE, despite the government’s failure to provide sufficient training for teachers and high-quality instructional materials. Abolishing MTB-MLE now will reverse the progress made,” the group said.

“The de-facto removal of Filipino subjects in Kinder and Grade 1 will make the transition to Filipino as medium of instruction more difficult,” it added.

DepEd officials explained that while the separate mother tongue subject will no longer be taught, it will still be used as a medium of instruction to teach the other subjects.

Filipino and English will be taught starting Grade 2, while Grade 1 students will have Language and Reading and Literacy subjects, which will be taught be using the “common language” of the students.

Tanggol Wika said the flexibility given to teachers to choose what medium of instruction for Grade 1 “could be a recipe for disaster.” — Sheila Crisostomo, Marc Jayson Cayabyab