Promoting indigenous knowledge systems and language maintenance through the Indigenous Peoples Education Program: The cases of four Mangyan communities in Oriental Mindoro, Philippines

The Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) Curriculum Framework was drafted by the Philippines’ Department of Education (DepEd), and implemented as part of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 after years of continuous dialogue with community elders and other stakeholders. The adoption of this framework seeks to fulfill the government’s mandate in providing indigenous peoples the right to a culturally appropriate educational system, which integrates and promotes indigenous knowledge systems and practices (IKSP), to affirm and strengthen the cultural identity and bonds of the indigenous youths to their cultural community and heritage. It aims to provide an educational framework that is culturally rooted and responsive to the indigenous communities’ specific social, educational, and environmental contexts. To achieve its objectives, the IPEd Curriculum Framework provides guidelines on key areas in education, including: (1) Curriculum design, competencies, and content, which are anchored to the communities’ IKSP, worldview, and their indigenous cultural institutions. These must also strengthen and affirm the indigenous cultural identity, as well as revitalize and enrich IKSPs and indigenous languages; (2) teaching methodologies and strategies that must be in line with indigenous learning systems; and (3) the development of culturally appropriate learning resources, which should integrate IKSPs, and must be written in the language that is to be determined by consultation with the community. This must be in line with the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education Policy (MTB-MLE), which emphasizes the use of the primary level learners’ mother tongue. The present study looks at how the IP Ed Curriculum is being implemented in indigenous communities in Oriental Mindoro, and what challenges local schools, which offer primary education to indigenous children in this region, face in implementing this framework in the communities they serve. The island of Mindoro, which is located off the southwestern coast of Luzon, is home to eight indigenous groups collectively known as Mangyan. This study focuses on IP schools in four out of eight of these groups, namely the Iraya, Hanunuo, Buhid, and Bangon groups. Of particular interest to the researcher is the level of language vitality, and the use of these groups’ indigenous languages in school instruction and in the production of learning resources. The extent to which the implementation of this framework fulfills its objectives among the indigenous youths in these four communities will be assessed, and whether its implementation instills a sense of wellbeing and empowerment in the students will also be explored. References Republic of the Philippines Department of Education Order No. 32. (2015). Adopting the Indigenous Peoples Education Curriculum Framework. Retrieved from http://www.deped.gov.ph Republic of the Philippines Department of Education Order No. 62. (2011). Adopting the National Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) Policy Framework. Retrieved from http://www.deped.gov.p