Access to primary and secondary schooling has expanded significantly in recent years, but the quality of learning remains a major concern.
The DepEd oversees basic education, sometimes called the K-12 system. This includes kindergarten, elementary grades 1-6, junior high grades 7-10, and senior high grades 11-12.
In 2013, basic education was extended from 10 to 12 years to align with global norms.
Enrollment grew, with gross secondary enrollment reaching about 85 percent in 2024, according to World Bank data.
Nationwide, basic literacy stands at a respectable 93.1 percent for ages 10–64, meaning most Filipinos can read, write, and compute at a simple level.
Functional literacy — which measures comprehension and application — is lower at 70.8 percent.
The global adult literacy rate is approximately 86–88 percent, according to UNESCO.
Other international benchmarks paint a challenging picture, however. The Programme for International Student Assessment, administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, tests 15-year-olds on applying knowledge in real-world contexts for mathematics, reading, and science.
In PISA 2022, the latest year with full results, the Philippines scored 355 in math, well below the world average of 472; 347 in reading, where the average was 476; and 356 in science, where the average was 485.
These scores place the nation’s students near the bottom among 81 participating countries — specifically, 76th in math and reading.
This was an improvement: In 2018, the nation ranked last.
In 2022, only about 16 percent of Filipino students reached basic proficiency in math, versus 69 percent for all secondary students.
This gap equates to 5-6 years of schooling behind peers in high-performing systems like Singapore, where top scores were around 540–575, or even regional neighbors like Vietnam and Indonesia.
Lowest performers include some Latin American and Caribbean countries such as Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, which scored in the 330s–340s.
Several factors contribute to poor outcomes. Pupil-teacher ratios in the Philippines remain high, around 30–35 students per teacher in primary and secondary levels, far above OECD averages of 13–15 per teacher.
There also is a shortage of classrooms — hundreds of thousands, according to some sources — and overcrowded classrooms limit individualized instruction.
Teacher quality, training, and support also are concerns, with shortages and uneven professional development.
Internally — that is, strictly within the nation itself — Philippine public education establishes national benchmarks with the National Achievement Test and Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment.
Catanduanes schools participate fully in these national assessments, but results are not publicized at the provincial level.
However, Bicol regional data show Catanduanes Province performing at a mid-range level for Region V, with around 24.8 percent of learners reaching near-proficient levels in one regional comparison — higher than some divisions but below top-performing cities Naga and Legazpi.
Catanduanes reports a simple literacy rate of 98.8 percent for ages 10 and above and 97.3 percent for ages 5 and above, well exceeding the 2024 basic national literacy rate of 93.1 percent.
Female literacy: about 97.3 percent. Male literacy: about 96.8 percent.
According to the DepEd National Inventory Dashboard, the Division of Catanduanes has a total of 277 schools — 43 secondary and 234 elementary schools. Some schools are “integrated”, having both elementary and secondary levels.
There are about 80,700 elementary and secondary students in Catanduanes. Staff include 3,694 teachers, 235 teaching-related personnel, and 349 non-teaching personnel.
The net enrollment rate in the province is 91.4 percent for elementary school-age children and 95.2 percent for secondary school-age children — close to or above national figures.
As for graduation and survival rates, the elementary cohort survival rate is 80.6 percent, slightly below the national average of approximately 83 percent but improving. The secondary rate is 71.5 percent, comparable to national figures.
The DepEd’s proposed operating budget for 2026 is PHP872.9 billion. The province spends about PHP1.2 billion on K-12 education, according to the 2026 General Appropriations Act.
Bryce McIntyre, PhD, resides in San Andres. He holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA. Grok AI was employed in research for this article.