# Classroom Shortage in CAR, 2023–2026: Last Mile Schools

CAR has the smallest classroom shortage of any region, 2,301 in 2023, and 63.5% of its schools are Last Mile Schools, which hold 71.1% of it.

This is the Markdown copy of [Classroom Shortage in CAR, 2023–2026: Last Mile Schools](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-car), an article on the NASH Reviewer Blog by Mark Anthony Llego, published Oct 28, 2026, updated Nov 4, 2026. Topics: DepEd data, School resources. NASH Reviewer is an independent practice platform not affiliated with DepEd, BHROD, or NEAP.

The Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR, often called the Cordillera) lacked 2,301 classrooms in 2023, according to DepEd's classroom shortage data as published in the EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard. That is 1.4% of the country's shortage of 165,443 classrooms, the smallest of the 18 regions. Measured against learners, the region is short 6.7 classrooms for every 1,000 learners enrolled in SY 2024-25, below the national rate of 7.4 and ninth among the regions.

The small total hides where the shortage sits. 1,171 of the region's 1,844 public schools (63.5%) are Last Mile Schools, the highest share of any region and more than three times the national 18.5%, and they hold 71.1% of the Cordillera's shortage. It is a shortage of many small gaps in remote schools: the median school with a shortage lacks 2.0 classrooms, and only 21 schools are short by 10 or more. On paper the School Building Program (SBP) 2026 is generous to the region, with classrooms equal to 49.2% of its shortage against 19.6% nationally, but school by school only 29.5% of those classrooms fall within the receiving school's own shortage, and 576 Last Mile Schools with a shortage receive none.

The figures below come from the cleaned school-level data behind the dashboard. Every file is listed on the [EDCOM II classroom data page](https://nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data).

## Key findings

- CAR lacked 2,301 classrooms in 2023, the smallest shortage of any region, and 890 of its 1,844 public schools (48.3%) had a shortage, against 54.2% nationally.
- 1,171 schools (63.5%) are Last Mile Schools, the highest share of any region, and they hold 71.1% of the region's shortage, against 9.2% for Last Mile Schools nationally.
- Mt. Province is short 12.8 classrooms per 1,000 learners, nearly twice the regional rate of 6.7; Kalinga, at 8.6, is the only other division above the national rate.
- Rural schools carry the shortage: they are short 7.3 classrooms per 1,000 learners, against 5.5 in urban schools, and hold 73.4% of it.
- The SBP 2026 list holds 1,133 classrooms, 49.2% of the shortage, but only 334 of them (29.5%) fall within a receiving school's own shortage, and counted that way the list meets 14.5% of the region's need.
- The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) implements 38.6% of the region's 2026 classrooms, against 18.9% nationally, and PSIP III only 25.4%.
- Only five schools (0.3%) held classes in two or more shifts in SY 2024-25, the lowest share of any region.

## CAR against the country

Below, the Cordillera's main indicators stand beside the national figures, each defined the same way in both columns.

| Indicator                                               |   CAR |   Philippines |
|:--------------------------------------------------------|------:|--------------:|
| Schools in the 2023 shortage data                       | 1,844 |        47,659 |
| Schools with a classroom shortage                       | 48.3% |         54.2% |
| Classroom shortage (2023)                               | 2,301 |       165,443 |
| Shortage per 1,000 learners                             |   6.7 |           7.4 |
| SBP 2026 classrooms                                     | 1,133 |        32,419 |
| SBP 2026 classrooms as a share of the shortage          | 49.2% |         19.6% |
| Schools with a shortage that get any SBP 2026 classroom | 15.2% |         13.3% |
| Schools with two or more shifts (SY 2024-25)            |  0.3% |          4.3% |
| Median learners per classroom, elementary               |  17.0 |          24.9 |
| Last Mile Schools                                       | 63.5% |         18.5% |
| Schools using makeshift rooms (2023)                    | 33.5% |         29.0% |
| Schools with a building for condemnation or demolition  | 28.9% |         28.9% |

The region differs most on Last Mile Schools, 63.5% against 18.5%, and on the size of its 2026 list, 49.2% of the shortage against 19.6%, the third highest coverage of any region. Its classrooms are less crowded: the median elementary school has 17.0 learners per classroom, against 24.9, and shifts are almost unknown. The condition of its rooms is closer to the country's, with more schools using makeshift rooms (33.5% against 29.0%) and the same share reporting a building for condemnation, 28.9%.

Kindergarten to Grade 10 accounts for 2,049 classrooms of the shortage and senior high school for 251 (10.9%). The urban-rural pattern runs the other way from the country's. Nationally, urban schools are short 8.4 classrooms per 1,000 learners and rural schools 6.1; in the Cordillera, the 1,624 rural schools are short 7.3 and the 199 urban schools 5.5, and rural schools hold 73.4% of the shortage. At the same time, 692 schools report more Kindergarten to Grade 10 classrooms than they need, 1,987 in all, not far below the region's whole shortage; but a spare room in one village does not reduce another school's shortage across the mountains.

## Classroom shortage by division in CAR

CAR has eight schools divisions: six provincial divisions, Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga and Mt. Province, and two city divisions, Baguio City and Tabuk City. Figure 1 orders them by classrooms short per 1,000 learners, so a small division and a large one can be compared.

![Horizontal bar chart of the 2023 classroom shortage per 1,000 learners in CAR's eight divisions. Mt. Province is highest at 12.8 (426 classrooms), well ahead of Kalinga at 8.6 (205) and Tabuk City at 7.1 (195); Benguet, with the largest count, 553, is at 6.7, on the regional line, followed by Apayao at 6.5 and Ifugao at 6.4, and Abra (4.8) and Baguio City (4.3) are lowest; the national line is at 7.4.](https://nash.com.ph/blog/_astro/classroom-shortage-car-divisions.tT6Esnwt_Z27JyxD.webp)

*Figure 1. Classroom shortage per 1,000 learners by division, CAR, 2023 shortage and SY 2024-25 learners. Chart: © 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. [Download the full-resolution chart (PNG)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/charts/deped-data/classroom-shortage-car-divisions.png).*

One division stands apart. Mt. Province is short 12.8 classrooms per 1,000 learners, nearly twice the regional rate, and 426 classrooms in all for 33,250 learners. Kalinga, at 8.6, is the only other division above the national rate; Tabuk City, at 7.1, is just under it, and Benguet, Apayao and Ifugao cluster around the regional 6.7.

By count, Benguet holds the largest shortage, 553 classrooms, 24.0% of the region's, at a rate equal to the region's. Baguio City has the lowest rate, 4.3, yet the largest share of schools with a shortage: its learners are concentrated in fewer, larger schools, and 67.2% of them lack at least one classroom.

| Division     |   Schools |   Learners (SY 2024-25) |   Classroom shortage (2023) |   Shortage per 1,000 learners |   Schools with a shortage |   SBP 2026 classrooms |   Coverage |
|:-------------|----------:|------------------------:|----------------------------:|------------------------------:|--------------------------:|----------------------:|-----------:|
| Mt. Province |       267 |                  33,250 |                         426 |                          12.8 |                     58.8% |                   116 |      27.2% |
| Kalinga      |       194 |                  23,329 |                         205 |                           8.6 |                     51.0% |                    54 |      26.3% |
| Tabuk City   |       103 |                  27,469 |                         195 |                           7.1 |                     53.4% |                    64 |      32.8% |
| Benguet      |       430 |                  82,976 |                         553 |                           6.7 |                     47.4% |                   365 |      66.0% |
| Apayao       |       200 |                  26,324 |                         174 |                           6.5 |                     45.0% |                    67 |      38.5% |
| Ifugao       |       266 |                  40,587 |                         259 |                           6.4 |                     44.7% |                   115 |      44.4% |
| Abra         |       317 |                  48,018 |                         230 |                           4.8 |                     38.2% |                   169 |      73.5% |
| Baguio City  |        67 |                  59,503 |                         259 |                           4.3 |                     67.2% |                   183 |      70.8% |

The share of schools with a shortage runs from 38.2% in Abra to 67.2% in Baguio City. Coverage, the division's SBP 2026 classrooms as a share of its 2023 shortage, runs from 26.3% in Kalinga to 73.5% in Abra, so every division in the region is above the national 19.6%. The pattern does not follow need: the three divisions with the highest rates, Mt. Province, Kalinga and Tabuk City, have the three lowest coverages, while Abra and Baguio City, with the lowest rates, have the highest.

## Provinces and cities: Benguet, Mountain Province, Kalinga, Ifugao, Abra, Apayao and Baguio City

The Philippine Standard Geographic Code (PSGC) places CAR's schools in six provinces and one highly urbanized city, Baguio, which stands apart from Benguet. Tabuk, a component city, is counted inside Kalinga here, so the province of Kalinga joins the Kalinga and Tabuk City divisions.

| Province or city   |   Cities and municipalities |   Schools |   Classroom shortage (2023) |   Shortage per 1,000 learners |   SBP 2026 classrooms |   Coverage |
|:-------------------|----------------------------:|----------:|----------------------------:|------------------------------:|----------------------:|-----------:|
| Benguet            |                          13 |       430 |                         553 |                           6.7 |                   365 |      66.0% |
| Mountain Province  |                          10 |       267 |                         426 |                          12.8 |                   116 |      27.2% |
| Kalinga            |                           8 |       297 |                         400 |                           7.8 |                   118 |      29.5% |
| Ifugao             |                          11 |       266 |                         259 |                           6.4 |                   115 |      44.4% |
| City of Baguio     |                           1 |        67 |                         259 |                           4.3 |                   183 |      70.8% |
| Abra               |                          27 |       317 |                         230 |                           4.8 |                   169 |      73.5% |
| Apayao             |                           7 |       200 |                         174 |                           6.5 |                    67 |      38.5% |

Benguet holds 553 classrooms of shortage and receives 365, 66.0% of it. Mountain Province, with 426, receives 116 (27.2%), and Kalinga, with 400 once Tabuk is included, receives 118 (29.5%), the two lowest coverages among the provinces. Abra has the most cities and municipalities, 27, and the highest coverage, 73.5%.

Among the region's 77 cities and municipalities, the City of Baguio has the largest shortage, 259 classrooms. The 10 largest are in Benguet, Mountain Province and Kalinga, besides Baguio:

| City or municipality   | Province or city   | Income class   |   Schools |   Classroom shortage (2023) |   SBP 2026 classrooms |   Coverage |
|:-----------------------|:-------------------|:---------------|----------:|----------------------------:|----------------------:|-----------:|
| City of Baguio         | City of Baguio     | 1st            |        69 |                         259 |                   183 |      70.8% |
| City of Tabuk          | Kalinga            | 1st            |       104 |                         195 |                    64 |      32.8% |
| Buguias                | Benguet            | 1st            |        51 |                         120 |                    31 |      25.9% |
| La Trinidad            | Benguet            | 1st            |        31 |                         113 |                   108 |      95.6% |
| Paracelis              | Mountain Province  | 1st            |        45 |                         107 |                    12 |      11.2% |
| Bauko                  | Mountain Province  | 2nd            |        52 |                         103 |                    48 |      46.6% |
| Itogon                 | Benguet            | 1st            |        46 |                          71 |                    28 |      39.2% |
| Mankayan               | Benguet            | 2nd            |        44 |                          60 |                    28 |      46.3% |
| Pinukpuk               | Kalinga            | 1st            |        47 |                          52 |                    11 |      21.3% |
| Balbalan               | Kalinga            | 1st            |        34 |                          51 |                    22 |      43.1% |

Neighbors fare differently. La Trinidad, the capital of Benguet, receives 108 classrooms for a shortage of 113 (95.6%), while Buguias, also in Benguet, receives 31 for 120 and Paracelis in Mountain Province 12 for 107 (11.2%). Eleven cities and municipalities with a shortage, 70 classrooms between them, have no SBP 2026 classroom; the largest of these is Sadanga, Mountain Province, short 22. Ten receive more classrooms than their shortage, 84 beyond it in all. The city figures follow the PSGC and the SBP masterlist's own municipality, so their school counts can differ slightly from the division of the same name.

## Schools with the largest classroom shortages in CAR

The largest shortages in the Cordillera are small by national measure. The school at the top of the list is short 32 classrooms, and the 10 together lack 227, 9.9% of the region's shortage. Eight of the 10 are in Benguet or Baguio City, three of them in La Trinidad. Their school IDs match the school table.

|   School ID | School                                         | Division    | City or municipality   |   Learners (SY 2024-25) |   Learners per classroom |   Classroom shortage (2023) |   SBP 2026 classrooms | Two or more shifts   |
|------------:|:-----------------------------------------------|:------------|:-----------------------|------------------------:|-------------------------:|----------------------------:|----------------------:|:---------------------|
|      305269 | Baguio City High School                        | Baguio City | City of Baguio         |                   6,936 |                     33.8 |                          32 |                     0 | No                   |
|      305133 | Benguet National High School                   | Benguet     | La Trinidad            |                   5,120 |                     47.9 |                          31 |                    20 | No                   |
|      305138 | Loo National High School                       | Benguet     | Buguias                |                   1,573 |                     87.4 |                          30 |                     0 | No                   |
|      136012 | Tabuk City Central School                      | Tabuk City  | City of Tabuk          |                   1,290 |                     92.1 |                          24 |                     2 | No                   |
|      305075 | Abra HS                                        | Abra        | Bangued                |                   3,560 |                     51.6 |                          20 |                     0 | No                   |
|      135617 | Balili ES                                      | Benguet     | La Trinidad            |                   1,002 |                     71.6 |                          19 |                     1 | Yes                  |
|      305282 | Guisad Valley National High School             | Baguio City | City of Baguio         |                   1,928 |                     39.3 |                          18 |                     0 | No                   |
|      305125 | Alejo M. Pacalso Memorial National High School | Benguet     | Itogon                 |                   1,759 |                     48.9 |                          18 |                     0 | No                   |
|      305276 | Rizal National High School                     | Baguio City | City of Baguio         |                   1,135 |                     54.0 |                          18 |                     0 | No                   |
|      135624 | La Trinidad CS                                 | Benguet     | La Trinidad            |                   1,705 |                     50.1 |                          17 |                    24 | No                   |

Baguio City High School has the largest shortage in the region, 32 classrooms, for 6,936 learners. The most crowded of the 10 are Tabuk City Central School, with 92.1 learners per classroom, and Loo National High School in Buguias, with 87.4. Four are on the SBP 2026 list: La Trinidad CS with 24 classrooms, more than its shortage of 17, Benguet National High School with 20, Tabuk City Central School with two and Balili ES with one, the only one of the 10 that holds classes in shifts.

Across all schools, the shortage is less concentrated than in the country. The 184 schools with the largest shortages, the top 10% of the region's schools, hold 51.1% of it, against 66.0% nationally, and it takes 176 schools (9.5%) to reach half. Only 21 schools are short by 10 or more classrooms, and they hold 15.7% of the shortage; among schools with a shortage, the median is 2.0 classrooms, against 3.0 nationally. For the method behind these shares, see [Philippine Classroom Shortage 2023: Where the Gap Is](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-philippines-2023).

## SBP 2026 classrooms in CAR

The SBP 2026 list has 237 lines for CAR, 1,133 classrooms at 225 schools: 3.5% of the national list, against the region's 1.4% of the shortage. Of these, 845 are funded under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) 2026, with PHP 3.33 billion; the other 288 are PSIP III classrooms, which have no budget on the list yet. Figure 2 shows, division by division, how far the 2026 list goes toward the 2023 shortage.

![Paired horizontal bars of the 2023 classroom shortage and SBP 2026 classrooms in CAR's eight divisions. Benguet has 553 classrooms of shortage and 365 on the list, Mt. Province 426 and 116, Ifugao 259 and 115, Baguio City 259 and 183, Abra 230 and 169, Kalinga 205 and 54, Tabuk City 195 and 64, and Apayao 174 and 67; every division's list is shorter than its shortage.](https://nash.com.ph/blog/_astro/classroom-shortage-car-sbp-2026.BhyjmjYI_Z1UTLvX.webp)

*Figure 2. 2023 classroom shortage and SBP 2026 classrooms by division, CAR. Chart: © 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. [Download the full-resolution chart (PNG)](https://nash.com.ph/blog/charts/deped-data/classroom-shortage-car-sbp-2026.png).*

No orange bar passes its blue one, but in Benguet, Baguio City and Abra the two come within reach of each other. The gap is widest in Mt. Province, where 116 classrooms meet a shortage of 426, and in Kalinga, with 54 for 205.

| Modality group   |   Lines |   Schools |   Classrooms |   Share of the region's SBP classrooms |
|:-----------------|--------:|----------:|-------------:|---------------------------------------:|
| DPWH             |      69 |        69 |          437 |                                  38.6% |
| LGU              |      83 |        82 |          314 |                                  27.7% |
| DepEd            |      51 |        51 |           94 |                                   8.3% |
| PSIP III (PPP)   |      34 |        31 |          288 |                                  25.4% |

The DPWH is the largest builder on the region's list, with 437 classrooms (38.6%), against 18.9% of the national list. Local governments implement 314 (27.7%) and DepEd 94 (8.3%), against 4.0% nationally. PSIP III, half of the national list, is a quarter of the Cordillera's: 288 classrooms on 34 lines. [DepEd School Building Program 2026 in Numbers](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-school-building-program-2026) explains the modalities and their budgets.

The school-by-school reading is less generous than the totals. Only 334 of the region's 2026 classrooms (29.5%) fall within the receiving school's own 2023 shortage, against 53.0% nationally, and 366 (32.3%) go to the 81 schools that had no 2023 shortage. 135 of the 890 schools with a shortage (15.2%) receive any classroom, a little above the national 13.3%, as do seven of the 18 schools short by more than 10 (38.9%). Counted this way, the 2026 list meets 14.5% of the region's shortage, not 49.2%, and leaves 1,967 classrooms unmet. [Do 2026 Classrooms Go Where the Shortage Is?](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-allocation-vs-shortage-2026) explains why a classroom beyond a school's own shortage meets no other school's need.

## Class shifts and crowded classrooms in CAR

Shifts are almost absent from the Cordillera. In SY 2024-25, five of the region's 1,843 schools in the enrollment data (0.3%) held classes in two or more shifts, none of them in three, the lowest share of any region; they enroll 4,425 learners, 1.3% of the total. 60.0% of them had a 2023 shortage, and two receive SBP 2026 classrooms.

Classrooms are less crowded than elsewhere at every level. The median school has 17.0 learners per classroom in elementary, 24.1 in junior high and 27.7 in senior high, against 24.9, 32.1 and 30.6 nationally. Still, 71 schools have more than 50 learners per classroom, with 9.0% of the learners counted, and bringing each down to 50 would take at least 188 classrooms. The measure is set out in [Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms in DepEd Schools](https://nash.com.ph/blog/class-shifting-crowded-classrooms).

The facilities data show strain of another kind: 612 schools (33.5%) use makeshift rooms, against 29.0% nationally, and 528 schools (28.9%) report a building for condemnation or demolition, 955 buildings in all.

## Last Mile Schools in CAR

1,171 of the region's schools (63.5%) are flagged as Last Mile Schools, schools in geographically isolated, disadvantaged and conflict-affected areas and hardship posts. No other region comes close; the next highest share, NIR's, is 39.9%. In the Cordillera, Last Mile Schools are the typical school, not the exception.

That changes what the shortage looks like. Nationally, Last Mile Schools hold 9.2% of the shortage; in CAR they hold 71.1% of it, 1,636 classrooms. They are also more likely to have a shortage than the region's other schools, 57.1% against 32.8%, a far wider gap than the country's.

The SBP 2026 list does not follow that need closely. Last Mile Schools in CAR are slightly less likely to be on it than the region's other schools, 10.8% against 13.4%, with 444 classrooms between them, the most at Last Mile Schools in any region. 576 Last Mile Schools with a shortage, 1,355 classrooms in all, receive none. DepEd's own Last Mile School modality has 17 lines with 51 classrooms in the region. For the country as a whole, EDCOM II's National Education Plan 2026–2035 cites a target of 9,542 Last Mile School classrooms (DepEd, 2025), with 1,590 a year in 2026, 2027 and 2028 (EDCOM II, 2026). [Last Mile Schools: Classroom Need and 2026 Allocation](https://nash.com.ph/blog/last-mile-schools-classroom-shortage) compares them nationally.

## What this means for school heads in CAR

In the Cordillera, a typical school with a shortage lacks one or two classrooms and is often a Last Mile School, so the case for a classroom is as much about remoteness and the state of the rooms as about the count.

- **Start from your own row.** The school table, linked from the [EDCOM II classroom data page](https://nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data), shows each school's 2023 shortage, learners per classroom, Last Mile School flag and SBP 2026 classrooms by school ID.
- **Cite the Last Mile School flag with the shortage.** With 576 Last Mile Schools short and not on the 2026 list, a flagged school's request is stronger when it names the flag, the shortage and the distance learners travel, in the [school improvement plan](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-school-improvement-plan) and the annual implementation plan.
- **Make the most of small numbers.** A shortage of two classrooms is typical here and is easy to overlook in a national list; put it beside the school's makeshift rooms or buildings for condemnation, which 33.5% and 28.9% of the region's schools report.
- **In Mountain Province and Kalinga, lead with the rate.** Mt. Province is short 12.8 classrooms per 1,000 learners and Kalinga 8.6, yet their divisions have the lowest coverage in the region, 27.2% and 26.3%.
- **Talk to the DPWH and the LGU as well as the division.** The DPWH implements 38.6% of the region's 2026 classrooms and local governments 27.7%, so the district engineering office and the municipal government are partners in any request.

## How these numbers were made

The data are the cleaned tables behind the EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard: DepEd's 2023 classroom shortage by school, the SBP 2026 masterlist, SY 2024-25 enrollment and class shifts from the Basic Education Information System (BEIS), 2023 school facilities, and school coordinates from the National School Building Inventory (NSBI) for SY 2022-23. [How the EDCOM Classroom Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-classroom-data-cleaned) documents every table and cleaning rule.

A school's shortage is DepEd's 2023 figure for Kindergarten to Grade 10 plus senior high school, counted only where the school lacks classrooms. The shortage per 1,000 learners divides the shortage of schools with SY 2024-25 learners by those learners and multiplies by 1,000. Learners per classroom divide SY 2024-25 learners by 2023 instructional classrooms. A Last Mile School is a school flagged as one in the dashboard data. A division's coverage is its SBP 2026 classrooms divided by its 2023 shortage. Classrooms within a school's shortage are counted up to the size of that shortage, and any beyond it are counted as beyond. Regions follow the PSGC, with Baguio as a highly urbanized city apart from Benguet; divisions are DepEd's schools divisions.

The analysis was done in Python with pandas, and the charts drawn with Matplotlib.

## Limits

The sources span several years: the shortage and facilities are from 2023, enrollment and shifts from SY 2024-25, and the allocations from 2026, so a school's figures may have changed since. The SBP list shows planned classrooms, not finished ones, and its PSIP III lines are still for bidding. The shortage is DepEd's own estimate, and new, merged or renumbered schools may be missing or counted under a new ID. Many of the region's schools are small, so a shortage of one classroom weighs more in a small school than the rate per 1,000 learners shows. A few schools carry no urban or rural flag and are left out of that comparison. These are descriptive figures: they show where the shortage and the 2026 classrooms are, not why.

## Frequently asked questions

### How big is the classroom shortage in CAR?

DepEd's 2023 data put the Cordillera Administrative Region's classroom shortage at 2,301 classrooms, 1.4% of the national shortage of 165,443 and the smallest of any region. That is 6.7 classrooms per 1,000 learners, against 7.4 nationally, and 48.3% of the region's public schools have a shortage.

### Which province in the Cordillera has the biggest classroom shortage?

By count, Benguet, with 553 classrooms, 24.0% of the region's shortage. By rate, Mountain Province, short 12.8 classrooms per 1,000 learners, nearly twice the regional rate. The City of Baguio has the largest shortage of any city or municipality, 259 classrooms.

### How many classrooms will CAR get under the SBP 2026?

The SBP 2026 masterlist has 1,133 classrooms for CAR on 237 lines at 225 schools: 845 funded under the GAA 2026 with PHP 3.33 billion, and 288 under PSIP III. They equal 49.2% of the region's 2023 shortage, against 19.6% nationally, but only 29.5% of them fall within a receiving school's own shortage. The list is a plan; it does not mean the classrooms are built.

### How many Last Mile Schools are in CAR?

1,171 of the region's 1,844 schools, 63.5%, are flagged as Last Mile Schools, the highest share of any region. They hold 1,636 classrooms of the region's shortage, 71.1% of it, and 576 of those with a shortage receive no SBP 2026 classroom.

## Download the data and cite this post

The cleaned EDCOM II classroom data behind this series are free to download for personal study; to reuse them, email [support@nash.com.ph](mailto:support@nash.com.ph) for written permission first. [How the EDCOM Classroom Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-classroom-data-cleaned) explains every table and cleaning rule. The files are at data.nash.com.ph: start with the [README](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/README.md), then the [school table](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/schools.parquet) (Parquet, or [CSV](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/schools.csv.gz)), the [School Building Program lines](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/sbp_projects.csv.gz) (CSV), the [city and municipality table](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/lgu_summary.csv.gz) (CSV), and every table for [Stata](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/classroom_tables_stata.zip) and [SPSS](https://data.nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data/v1.1/classroom_tables_spss.zip). Every regional figure in this report can be computed from the school table, filtered to CAR by `deped_region`.

Every file, with its rows, columns and checksum, is listed on the [EDCOM II classroom data page](https://nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data). To cite the data: Llego, M. A. (2026). *EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard data, cleaned, version 1.1*. NASH Reviewer. https://nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data

To cite this post: Llego, M. A. (2026, October 28). *Classroom shortage in CAR, 2023–2026: Last Mile Schools*. NASH Reviewer Blog. https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-car

## References

- Llego, M. A. (2026). *EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard data, cleaned, version 1.1* [Data set]. NASH Reviewer. https://nash.com.ph/edcom-classroom-data
- Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II). (2026). *National Education Plan 2026–2035* (Year Three report).

## More in this series

- [How the EDCOM Classroom Data Was Cleaned](https://nash.com.ph/blog/edcom-classroom-data-cleaned)
- [Philippine Classroom Shortage 2023: Where the Gap Is](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-philippines-2023)
- [DepEd School Building Program 2026 in Numbers](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-school-building-program-2026)
- [Do 2026 Classrooms Go Where the Shortage Is?](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-allocation-vs-shortage-2026)
- [Classroom Allocation by LGU Income Class, 2026](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-allocation-lgu-income-class)
- [Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms in DepEd Schools](https://nash.com.ph/blog/class-shifting-crowded-classrooms)
- [Last Mile Schools: Classroom Need and 2026 Allocation](https://nash.com.ph/blog/last-mile-schools-classroom-shortage)
- Regional reports: [NCR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-ncr), [CAR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-car), [Region I](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-1-ilocos), [Region II](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-2-cagayan-valley), [Region III](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-3-central-luzon), [Region IV-A](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-4a-calabarzon), [MIMAROPA](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-mimaropa), [Region V](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-5-bicol), [Region VI](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-6-western-visayas), [NIR](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-negros-island-region), [Region VII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-7-central-visayas), [Region VIII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-8-eastern-visayas), [Region IX](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-9-zamboanga-peninsula), [Region X](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-10-northern-mindanao), [Region XI](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-11-davao), [Region XII](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-12-soccsksargen), [Caraga](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-13-caraga), [BARMM](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-barmm)
- Rankings and deep dives: [Congressional districts](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-by-congressional-district), [Top 20 cities and municipalities](https://nash.com.ph/blog/cities-municipalities-largest-classroom-shortage), [Rizal](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-rizal), [Quezon City](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-quezon-city), [City of Manila](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-manila), [Tawi-Tawi](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-tawi-tawi), [Cavite](https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-cavite), [Cost of a classroom](https://nash.com.ph/blog/cost-to-build-classroom-philippines)
- Explainers: [PSIP III](https://nash.com.ph/blog/psip-iii-classrooms-explained), [Senior high shortage](https://nash.com.ph/blog/senior-high-school-classroom-shortage), [Junior high shortage](https://nash.com.ph/blog/junior-high-school-classroom-shortage), [Excess classrooms](https://nash.com.ph/blog/schools-with-more-classrooms-than-needed), [Learning Continuity Spaces](https://nash.com.ph/blog/learning-continuity-spaces-sbp-2026), [How learners reach school](https://nash.com.ph/blog/how-learners-reach-public-high-schools)
- For teachers and school heads: [Action research and thesis topics](https://nash.com.ph/blog/action-research-topics-classroom-shortage)
- Related: [CRLA Results SY 2025-26 in CAR: Abra to Mountain Province](https://nash.com.ph/blog/crla-results-sy-2025-2026-car), [DepEd Classroom and School Building Data, SY 2023-2024](https://nash.com.ph/blog/deped-classroom-school-building-data-sy-2023-2024), [How to Read DepEd Data: A Guide for Aspiring School Heads](https://nash.com.ph/blog/how-to-read-deped-data)

*Analysis and charts by Mark Anthony Llego for NASH Reviewer. Data: EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard and Department of Education data. NASH Reviewer is not affiliated with EDCOM II or DepEd. Charts may be reused only with written permission from support@nash.com.ph.*

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© 2026 Mark Anthony Llego, NASH Reviewer. All rights reserved. You may quote up to 100 words from this article with the author's name, its title and a link. In research, cite it as: Llego, M. A. (2026, October 28). *Classroom Shortage in CAR, 2023–2026: Last Mile Schools*. NASH Reviewer. https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-car. Any other reuse of the article, its charts or its data needs written permission: email support@nash.com.ph. Terms of Service: https://nash.com.ph/terms#website-content-and-data