The Community School and the Mother Tongue: Dr. Pedro T. Orata on Multilingual
Education
Erwin S. Fernandez
Abung na Panagbasa’y Pangasinan
Ulupan na Pansiansia’y Salitan Pangasinan (UPSP)
Abstract
This article explores the thinking of Pangasinan educator Dr. Pedro T. Orata on
the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction in the classroom. Against
the background of Orata’s philosophy on education, it discusses Orata’s view on
the community school and its implications towards multilingual education in the
Philippines.
The advocacy to teach non-Tagalog languages to save them from dying and extinction had to be
founded on Filipino educational philosophy and practices. And one of the original thinkers in
Philippine education is Pedro T. Orata. There are few studies that focused on Orata’s life and
works. Corpuz (1971) discussed Orata’s philosophy on quality and quantity education along with
two other Philippine education giants: Vitaliano Bernardino and Jose V. Aguilar. Bacani (1973)
examined Orata’s life and its significance to Philippine education. Borlaza (1984), although
producing a limited biography of Orata according to Arcilla (1985), wrote the first full-length
life account of the Pangasinan educator. Calvero (1994), a disciple of Orata, identified in Orata’s
life as educator the legacies he left in Philippine education and society.
Orata is known as the father of barrio high schools movement in the Philippines and for
pioneering in realizing his belief that “education is for all”, the Ramon Magsaysay award for
public service was bestowed on him in 1971 citing his “44 years of creative work in education,
particularly his conception and promotion of barrio high schools for rural Filipino youth”
(Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation 1971a). But his philosophy of education was hinged on
his idea of a community school well before he commenced and headed the movement, a concept
that rose out of his experience in getting education.
This article traces the origins of Orata’s concept of a community school, explores Orata’s
position on the use of the mother tongue and finally examines Orata’s possible contributions to
multilingual education in the Philippines today.
Inspiration for a community school
Born on 27 February 1899 in a barrio in the town of Urdaneta, now a city, in Pangasinan, Orata
had to struggle to get into school: on the first three grades he studied in a school in their barrio,
for the fourth grade he had to walk four kilometers to the town proper, failing the grade, then
passing it after a year, then for the fifth grade he had to go to Binalonan, eleven kilometers away
from Bactad, for grade six he went to Urdaneta and for grade seven, he went to Los Baños in
Laguna at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture where he failed in Botany,
and thus went home to complete his elementary education (Ramon Magsaysay Award
Foundation 1971b). For his secondary education, he had to go to the provincial capital in
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Lingayen graduating valedictorian. For his college, his sister had used up all her savings for him
to study in the US.
Having graduated with honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana with a Bachelor’s
degree in education while doing odd jobs, he proceeded to do his master’s in 1925 and a doctoral
degree in 1927 at Ohio State University. His dissertation exposed the fallacies of the popular
Edward L. Thorndike “theory of identical elements” on the transfer of training; the university
deemed it a breakthrough and had it published in 1928. On his return to the Philippines in 1927,
he taught briefly in two normal schools in Bayambang, Pangasinan, and in Manila before serving
in the Bureau of Education and working as Division Superintendent of Schools in Isabela in
1928. In 1931, he was transferred to Sorsogon to serve in the same capacity. But he seemed to be
unable to connect with people under him, one possible reason could be language barrier, he went
back to the US in 1934 and accepted a teaching position in his alma mater. In 1936, he accepted
to work with the US Office of Indian Affairs to supervise the conversion of Kyle day school (one
source says it was Little Wound day school) in Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota into a
community school for Sioux Indians. Following John Dewey’s philosophy of education that
education should deal with real life experience, Orata (1953) approached his students from the
perspective of involving them in their own community with their own values and culture
including language. He expressed sympathy and respect to the Sioux Indians, which, to Murray
and Rosalie Wax (1964), was merely a symptom of the dominant ideology at that time: that of
looking at the Indians as culturally deprived. In any case, Orata’s exposure to the Indian
community was “crucial” in his thinking later on about the community school (Calvero 1994,
78).
Establishing the community school prototype
Upon the invitation of Chairman Camilo Osias, Orata returned to the Philippines in 1941 to join
the National Council of Education, which continued during the Japanese occupation until he
asked for the termination of his job as technical assistant to return to his hometown. The return of
the Americans in early 1945 was propitious to Orata who was suffering from malaria. He was
called at home by an American army captain who told him to “reestablish the schools” in what
the officer assumed to be the “city” of Urdaneta. It was the beginning of a model that he would
apply to all his initiatives. He reestablished the elementary schools. Since he knew that students
had to go to Lingayen to get their secondary education, he initiated the establishment of a high
school, the first in the Philippines outside a provincial capital. Gathering fifteen professionals
who would act as teachers in Urdaneta High School, he held classes for 350 students in a wartorn roofless church.
The high school was a local initiative anticipating much of Orata’s philosophy on
education. Makeshift classrooms had to be made where instructors and students had to sit on the
floor. Since there were no books or any teaching materials available, the teachers had to be
innovative to become effective to their students. Thirty-five seniors graduated with hand-written
diplomas. It was left to Orata to appeal for approval to the then Secretary of Instruction and
Information Francisco Benitez who reluctantly agreed.
Using the mother tongue in the community school
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Orata’s conception of a community school broadened when he joined the Department of Public
Instruction as chief of the curriculum and research division and in 1947as technical assistant and
later acting executive officer of the newly created Philippine national commission of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). In 1948 he worked in
Thailand as a UNESCO consultant and the following year accepted a position to work at
UNESCO in Paris lasting for twelve years and getting him to various countries, which allowed
him to observe at close hand the different educational practices in these countries.
It was during his work at the UNESCO when he brought to the world’s attention the work
of his fellow educator, Mr. Jose V. Aguilar, on the so-called “Iloilo experiment” in which
Hiligaynon was used as the medium of instruction in the first three grades of schooling in an
experimental group and English in a control group (Orata 1951; 1953). But prior to this, he was
able to witness an early application on the use of the mother tongue in the classroom by Dr.
Pedro Guiang in Ilocos Norte during the Japanese occupation and after the war, in 1948, in Cebu.
Having developed courses of study in Iloko and Cebuano, Dr. Guiang believed that it was
possible for students to learn two languages at the same time – English and their mother tongue.
Aguilar who was the superintendent in Iloilo approached it experimentally on the proposition
that only one language should be introduced in the first two grades – that is the local language
(mother tongue or L1) – before introducing English in the third grade.
The experiment was conducted for three school years: 1948-1949, 1949-1950 and 19501951 involving the same set of seven schools (one located in the city, three in a farming district
and three in a fishing district) and teachers for experimental and control group. On the first year
of the experiment, students who were taught in Hiligaynon outperformed students who were
taught in English in reading, arithmetic and social studies. On its second year, the same result
was reached: that students who were taught in their mother tongue were better than those who
were introduced to English as medium of instruction in subjects such as reading, arithmetic and
social studies. On its third year, covering up to December 1950, in spite of the apparent
advantage of the control group in English, it was concluded that, based on tests and
measurements, “the experimental group continued to surpass the control group, the difference
being statistically significant in arithmetic and predominantly in favor with respect to language
and reading” (Orata 1953: 128). It was also found out that the experimental group would catch
up in learning English within six months of exposure to this language with the experimental
group “slightly better” than the control group in oral reading and spoken language while the
control group was “slightly better” than the experimental group in written language (Ibid.).
Aside from these superior academic achievements by the experimental group, Orata
(1953) also relates positive opinion of teachers and parents who noticed the improvement in the
attitude to learning of their students in the case of the former and children in the case of the
latter. Orata also notes the philosophy behind Mr. Aguilar’s community, which was not limited
to the use of the local language but rather using it in aid of understanding and attacking the
problems of the community. In conclusion, Orata affirms what Mr. Aguilar had observed, that
mother tongue bridges school, home and the community.
The community school in practice
After serving as senior specialist in education at the East-West Center in Hawaii producing eight
books or monographs, Orata went back to the Philippines in 1965 to devote full-time and realize
his concept of a community school in the form of barrio high schools he started in 1964. The
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experiment he piloted in three barrios in Urdaneta and one barrio in Bautista, both in Pangasinan.
Although its approval was conditional for one year, the favorable result with students from barrio
high schools excelling those from the mother high school, the 25 percent retention rate in the
barrio high schools and the zero delinquency rate in the barrios proved to the authorities the
novelty of the program so that President Ferdinand E. Marcos endorsed the barrio high school
movement in December 1966; subsequently a law was passed in 1969 legalizing barrio high
schools.
No sooner that the movement had become nationwide, Orata began experimenting on the
first community college in the Philippines with Urdaneta as the place of the pilot project in 1966.
Using the proceeds of the town fiesta upon the decision of the people of Urdaneta and additional
money from the municipal council, Orata established the Urdaneta Community College, a
tertiary educational institution catering to the professional needs of the community, and formally
inaugurated in 1968. Soon after, this innovation was replicated nationwide so that by 1970, there
were 27 community colleges in the country.
But Orata could not be stopped in pursuing his innovative ideas in broadening the access
to education to most people primarily those who could not afford to send their kids to expensive
preschools. In September 1969 he introduced his community preschools in Barrio Nancayasan
still in Urdaneta. Knowing the existing policy on teaching the local language as medium of
instruction, he advocated its use also in preschools although parents of preschool children in
Urdaneta and Bayambang favored English. Nonetheless, he believes that “a happy compromise
be adopted – a mixture of English, Pilipino and the vernacular. The children were taught to
express themselves better in their home language and to do so in English and Pilipino as well. In
this way, they were better prepared for grade school. They learned their native language better
and had some understanding of English and Pilipino as well” (Orata 1970 as cited in Borlaza
1984, 311).
Finally, having observed educational practices in Australia, Switzerland and France
where classes of different grades were taught in one room, Orata established multi-grade schools
in six far-flung barrios in an unnamed municipality for the school year 1971-1972.
Conclusion
In all these educational innovations which earned him the hostility of vested interest groups but
which were later accepted by higher authorities, Orata emphasized the role of local initiatives in
solving community problems particularly illiteracy and lack of educational opportunities in the
rural areas. He believed in the capacity of local people in addressing the concerns of their
community because they are the ones equipped in addressing them. By involving the parents,
teachers and the whole community in achieving their goals for education, Orata broke away from
overdependence in central government because he believed that if they were to wait for the
government to act, they would still be waiting and so would accomplish nothing. His concept of
a community school carries with it its subversive character, the school and the community’s
capacity to be independent and self-reliant – a melding of community spirit which origins may
be traced back to the primordial communities prior to colonialism (Orata 1969; Orata 1972;
Aguilar 2002). This is the central philosophy behind the audacity of Orata that is very relevant in
confronting the multicultural, multilingual – hence autonomous – bases of Philippine educational
landscape.
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This agrees with the recent Department of Education (DepEd) order of promoting schoolbased management in dealing with the curricular demands of multilingual education. Instead of
waiting for the central government to act on the need for locally relevant materials, Orata would
rather initiate the pooling of resources and people in addressing it at the community level. Such
strategy would require schools’ superintendents and principals to be bold enough in motivating
their people – the teachers – to be creative enough as Orata. Such is the contribution and
relevance of Orata in confronting the challenges of multilingual education. Now that DepEd had
recognized Orata’s advocacy on democratizing education for all since the 1990s, DepEd by
implementing multilingual education further opens the access to education for marginalized,
unrepresented groups in the nation. Orata would no doubt assent.
References
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Journal of History 48 (1-2)
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Bacani, Leonila Ocampo. 1973. A study on the life and selected works of Dr. Pedro T. Orata:
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Borlaza, Gregorio C. 1984. The life and work of Pedro T. Orata (An advocate of education for
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_____.1951. Bridging the gap between school and community in Iloilo, Philippines. School and
Society 741 (Aug.): 116-17.
_____.1953. Fundamental Education in an Amerindian Community. Lawrence, Kan: Haskell
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_____.1953. The Iloilo experiment in education through the vernacular. In Unesco, The use of
vernacular languages in education, 123-131. Paris
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_____.1969. Community schools in the Philippines. Prospects in education 1: 52-56.
_____. 1970. Barrio pre-school classes. Barrio High Schools Bulletin 4 (3-4) Jan.-Feb.
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_____.1971b. Biography of Pedro Tamesis Orata. Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.
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