Filipino officials and academics are more than ecstatic to know that the premiere American educational institution, Harvard University, is offering a preceptor course in Tagalog, the Philippines' most widely used language.
The university's student publication, The Harvard Crimson, announced that the Department of South Asian Studies will hire three preceptors to teach Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesian, and Thai, for course offerings starting the 2023-24 academic year.
“We’re very excited and hopeful that these positions will be a game-changer in terms of the Asia Center’s long-term mission to build Southeast Asian studies at Harvard, as well as the university’s engagement with the region,” Executive Director Elizabeth Liao of the Harvard University Asia Center said.
While still in its infancy stage, the teaching of Tagalog and other Southeast Asian languages at Harvard is an experimental move in the right direction.  It is nothing but a recognition of the pivotal role of Filipinos, Indonesians and the Thai people in the regional economy and in the distribution of political and economic influence in the Asian region.
Demographic considerations alone should merit a serious implementation of these Southeast Asian language programs at Harvard.  Indonesia has a population of 284 million; the Philippines has 113 million and Thailand has 70 million.  Together these SE neighbors have 467 million people, who are obviously proud that their native tongues are being noticed by the West's prime institute of learning.
James Robson, a professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and director of the Asia Center, said the department has spent more than two years working to increase education about Southeast Asia at Harvard.
“What I’m hoping is that if we can demonstrate that there’s demand for these languages and students show up and are excited about it, then hopefully we can also use this to convince the administration to further support Southeast Asian studies generally and language instruction in particular,” Robson said.
There is only one course on the Philippines offered in the university, which was a survey course on the history of Southeast Asia.
Before Harvard's decision to teach Tagalog, most Southeast Asian languages were taught as part of a tutorial format within the Department of South Asian Studies. Jorge Espada, associate director for Southeast Asia Programs at the Asia Center, said they wanted to see if we could have these languages taught by a preceptor-level position to professionalize the instruction, to make it more consistent, and to generate enthusiasm for it at Harvard.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez  is proud that Harvard has chosen to teach its students the Filipino language.  He said he is proud of the move and hopes the program would flourish and later on to include many aspects of Filipino culture.
It is well to note that before Harvard, universities in Moscow and Beijing had been teaching Tagalog.  The Manila Bulletin officers have wondered why their decades-old Tagalog magazine, Liwayway, has been enjoying brisk sales in Russia.  It is because for years now, Tagalog has been included in the curriculums of several Russian universities, and students are using Liwayway as a supplementary reader.
We feel proud that Harvard, too, is joining the bandwagon.