Classroom Shortage in Region III, 2023–2026: Class Shifts

Region III (Central Luzon, often searched as Region 3) lacked 13,119 classrooms in 2023, according to DepEd’s classroom shortage data as published in the EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard. Only Region IV-A and NCR lack more: Region III holds 7.9% of the country’s shortage of 165,443 classrooms, the third largest share of the 18 regions, and the three together hold 41.7%. Set against its 2,399,217 learners in SY 2024-25, though, the shortage is 5.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners, below the national 7.4 and 12th among the regions.

Region III’s shortage shows up as class shifts. In SY 2024-25, 389 of its schools (10.4%) held classes in two or more shifts, against 4.3% nationally, and those schools enroll 681,012 learners, 28.2% of the region’s total. The pressure is heaviest in Bulacan, which holds 40.3% of the region’s shortage, and above all in the City of San Jose Del Monte, short 11.9 classrooms per 1,000 learners. The School Building Program (SBP) 2026 lists 4,103 classrooms for the region, 31.3% of its shortage against 19.6% nationally, but that share ranges from 2.0% in Malolos City to more than the whole shortage in four small divisions.

The figures below, from the cleaned school-level data behind the dashboard, cover Region III’s seven provinces, two highly urbanized cities and 21 divisions. Every file is listed on the EDCOM II classroom data page.

Key findings

• Region III lacked 13,119 classrooms in 2023, the third largest regional shortage, yet its rate, 5.5 per 1,000 learners, is below the national 7.4.
• 389 schools (10.4%) held classes in two or more shifts in SY 2024-25, against 4.3% nationally, and they enroll 28.2% of the region’s learners.
• Bulacan province, with its cities, is short 5,293 classrooms, 40.3% of the region’s shortage, and the City of San Jose Del Monte alone 1,512.
• Only three of the 21 divisions are above the national rate: the City of San Jose Del Monte (11.9), Mabalacat City (9.4) and Meycauayan City (9.0).
• The SBP 2026 list holds 4,103 classrooms for the region, 31.3% of its shortage, and DPWH implements 1,288 of them (31.4%), against 18.9% of the list nationally.
• Malolos City has 6 classrooms on the list for a shortage of 298 (2.0%), while the Science City of Muñoz has 40 for 13 (307.7%).
• Nine of the 10 schools with the largest shortages hold classes in shifts, led by Pampanga High School, short 137 classrooms for 11,212 learners.

Region III against the country

Each row of the table uses the same definition for the region and for the country.

The region parts from the country most on shifts, 10.4% of schools against 4.3%, and on crowding: its median elementary school has 28.2 learners per classroom against 24.9. On other rows it is better placed. Fewer of its schools have a shortage, its share of Last Mile Schools is half the national one, 9.2% against 18.5%, and makeshift rooms are far less common, 11.1% against 29.0%. Its SBP 2026 classrooms equal 31.3% of its shortage, above the national 19.6%.

Most of the shortage is in Kindergarten to Grade 10, 11,619 classrooms; senior high school accounts for 1,500 (11.4%). It is an urban shortage: the region’s 1,616 urban schools carry 76.9% of it, more than the 60.2% that urban schools carry nationally, and they are short 6.4 classrooms per 1,000 learners against 3.7 in the 2,085 rural schools. At the same time, 1,428 schools report more Kindergarten to Grade 10 classrooms than they need, 5,184 in all. Those rooms stay where they are; they do not shorten the shift schedule of a crowded school elsewhere.

Classroom shortage by division in Region III

Region III has 21 schools divisions: seven provincial divisions, Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac and Zambales, and 14 city divisions. The chart ranks them by the shortage per 1,000 learners, so that a small city and a large province can be compared.

The cities of Bulacan and Pampanga fill the top of the chart. The City of San Jose Del Monte, Mabalacat City and Meycauayan City are above the national rate, and Angeles City sits on it, while San Fernando City, Malolos City and Cabanatuan City are just below. Pampanga, the provincial division, is at 4.2, well below its own cities. The provincial divisions of Zambales, Bataan, Nueva Ecija and Aurora are all under the regional rate, and so are the cities of Balanga, Gapan and San Jose and the Science City of Muñoz, lowest at 0.7.

By count, Bulacan is the largest division, short 2,996 classrooms, 22.8% of the region’s shortage, followed by the City of San Jose Del Monte (1,512), Tarlac (1,464) and Pampanga (1,364). A single city division, San Jose Del Monte, is short more classrooms than the Tarlac or Pampanga provincial divisions.

In the City of San Jose Del Monte 93.0% of schools have a shortage, and in Cabanatuan City 84.6%; in the Science City of Muñoz 19.4% do. Coverage runs from 2.0% in Malolos City to 307.7% in the Science City of Muñoz, and four small divisions have more on the list than they are short: Muñoz, Balanga City (155.8%), Gapan City (135.1%) and San Jose City (126.7%). Tarlac, the provincial division, is at 10.7%. The division totals leave out 3 SBP classrooms at one school with no division in the data; the regional totals include them.

Provinces and cities: Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Zambales and Aurora

The PSGC, the Philippine Standard Geographic Code, places Region III’s schools in seven provinces and two highly urbanized cities that stand apart from them, Angeles and Olongapo. Component cities are counted in their provinces: San Jose Del Monte, Malolos and Meycauayan in Bulacan, for example, and San Fernando and Mabalacat in Pampanga, although each has its own schools division.

Bulacan stands out on both counts. It is short 5,293 classrooms, 40.3% of the region’s, at 7.8 per 1,000 learners, the highest rate of any province or city in the table, and its 1,363 SBP 2026 classrooms equal 25.8% of its shortage. Tarlac has the third largest shortage, 1,902, and the lowest coverage, 11.7%. Nueva Ecija and Bataan fare best among the larger provinces, at 54.7% and 57.3%, and Aurora’s list nearly equals its shortage.

Among the region’s 130 cities and municipalities, the City of San Jose Del Monte has the largest shortage, 1,512 classrooms, more than twice that of the next, the City of Angeles. Five of the 10 largest are in Bulacan:

Santa Maria and Marilao, two Bulacan municipalities without a division of their own, are each short more classrooms than most of the region’s city divisions. Seven cities and municipalities with a shortage have no SBP 2026 classroom, 182 classrooms between them; the largest is Apalit, Pampanga, short 80. At the other end, 22 receive more than their shortage, 320 classrooms beyond it in all. The city table follows the PSGC and the masterlist’s own municipality, so a city can differ from the division of the same name: the City of Tarlac is short 514 classrooms and the Tarlac City division 437, because the city table also counts schools inside the city that the Tarlac provincial division runs. The City of Cabanatuan (427) and the Cabanatuan City division (408) differ for the same reason.

Schools with the largest classroom shortages in Region III

The 10 schools with the largest shortages mix large elementary schools with large high schools, and nine of them hold classes in shifts. Four are in the City of San Jose Del Monte. Together they are short 727 classrooms, 5.5% of the region’s shortage.

Pampanga High School in the City of San Fernando has the largest shortage in the region, 137 classrooms, and the largest enrollment in the table, 11,212 learners. The most crowded is Goldenville Elementary School in San Jose Del Monte, with 152.4 learners per classroom, followed by Anunas Elementary School in Angeles at 117.4. Five of the 10 are on the SBP 2026 list, three with 20 classrooms each: Pampanga High School, Francisco Homes Elementary School and Prenza NHS. Capas National High School, short 65, is the only one of the 10 not on shifts.

Across all schools, the 370 with the largest shortages, the top 10% of the region’s schools, hold 64.5% of it, and the 369 schools short by 10 or more classrooms hold the same 64.5%: in Region III the top tenth and the schools short by 10 or more are almost exactly the same schools. Half of the shortage sits in 217 schools (5.9%), and among schools with a shortage the median is 3.0 classrooms. The national report, Philippine Classroom Shortage 2023: Where the Gap Is, uses the same shares.

SBP 2026 classrooms in Region III

The SBP 2026 list has 621 lines for Region III, 4,103 classrooms at 590 schools, 12.7% of the national list for a region with 7.9% of the national shortage. Of these, 2,282 classrooms are funded under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) 2026, with PHP 8.19 billion; the other 1,821 are PSIP III classrooms, the third Public-Private Partnership for School Infrastructure Project, still for bidding and without a budget on the list. The chart sets each division’s 2023 shortage beside its 2026 classrooms.

Every large division falls short, Tarlac the most: 1,464 classrooms short, 156 on the list. Malolos City’s orange bar barely shows. The pattern reverses at the bottom of the chart, where four of the smallest shortages carry the longer orange bar.

Region III leans on the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) more than the country does: DPWH implements 1,288 classrooms, 31.4% of the region’s list, against 18.9% nationally. PSIP III accounts for 1,821 (44.4%), local governments for 898 (21.9%) and DepEd for 96. DepEd School Building Program 2026 in Numbers describes each modality and its budget.

School by school, 2,152 of the region’s 2026 classrooms (52.5%) fall within the receiving school’s own 2023 shortage, about the national 53.0%, and 1,251 (30.5%) go to 238 schools with no 2023 shortage. Of the 1,834 schools with a shortage, 345 (18.8%) receive any classroom, and so do 125 of the 340 schools short by more than 10 (36.8%). Counted this way, the 2026 list meets 16.4% of the region’s shortage and leaves 10,966 classrooms unmet. Do 2026 Classrooms Go Where the Shortage Is? explains why a classroom placed beyond one school’s shortage does not reduce another’s.

Class shifts and crowded classrooms in Region III

Only NCR and Region IV-A have more schools on shifts than Region III, and the three regions together hold 68.3% of the country’s shifting schools. In SY 2024-25, 389 of the 3,743 Region III schools in the enrollment data (10.4%) held classes in two or more shifts, four of them in three. They enroll 681,012 learners, 28.2% of the region’s total: more than one learner in four attends a school that shares its rooms across the day.

Shifts and the shortage go together. Of the 385 shifting schools in the shortage data, 92.5% had a 2023 shortage, close to the 93.0% of shifting schools nationally, and 118 (30.6%) receive SBP 2026 classrooms, against 26.2% nationally. In its 20 October 2026 news release, EDCOM II estimated that ending double and triple shifting across the country would take 52,871 classrooms in 1,889 schools; that estimate uses its own data and years and cannot be matched school by school with these figures.

Classrooms are fuller than in the country at every level. The median school has 28.2 learners per classroom in elementary, 33.1 in junior high and 33.8 in senior high, against 24.9, 32.1 and 30.6 nationally; elementary and senior high are where the gap is widest. More than 50 learners share a classroom in 412 schools, which hold 22.2% of the learners counted; bringing each down to 50 would take at least 2,597 classrooms. Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms in DepEd Schools has the national figures on shifts and crowding.

The 2023 facilities data show a region that leans on shifts rather than on stopgap rooms: 410 schools (11.1%) use makeshift rooms, against 29.0% nationally. Buildings marked for condemnation are the larger concern, with 1,220 schools (32.9%) reporting a building for condemnation or demolition, 2,684 buildings in all, against 28.9% of schools nationally.

Last Mile Schools in Region III

Region III has 342 Last Mile Schools, schools in geographically isolated, disadvantaged and conflict-affected areas and hardship posts: 9.2% of its schools, half the national share of 18.5%. They hold 526 classrooms of shortage, 4.0% of the region’s, so the region’s shortage is mostly a matter of crowded towns and cities rather than remote schools. More of them have a shortage than other schools, 56.7% against 48.8%.

Fewer are on the 2026 list, 13.5% against 16.0% of other schools, with 147 classrooms between them, and 166 Last Mile Schools with a shortage, 443 classrooms in all, receive none. DepEd’s own Last Mile School modality has 12 lines with 37 classrooms in the region. Last Mile Schools: Classroom Need and 2026 Allocation sets these schools against the rest of the country.

What this means for school heads in Region III

In Central Luzon the shortage is felt in the timetable: shifts and crowded rooms, above all in the cities of Bulacan and Pampanga.

• Look up your school first. Filter the school table by your school ID for its shortage, learners per classroom, shift status and any SBP 2026 lines; every file is linked from the EDCOM II classroom data page.
• Lead with shifts if your school runs them. The number of shifts, enrollment and learners per classroom from SY 2024-25 are the clearest evidence a school can give, and only 30.6% of the region’s shifting schools receive a 2026 classroom. Put them in the school improvement plan with their years and sources.
• In San Jose Del Monte and the Bulacan towns, use rates. A city short 1,512 classrooms for 126,952 learners, or a municipality like Santa Maria short 504, makes a different case from a provincial division with hundreds of schools.
• Where coverage is low, ask how the next list will be drawn. Malolos City (2.0%), Tarlac (10.7%) and Cabanatuan City (12.8%) have the region’s thinnest lists; school heads there can ask the division what data the next program will use and make sure their school’s figures are current.
• Follow your line with whoever builds it. DPWH implements 31.4% of the region’s 2026 classrooms and local governments 21.9%, so the district engineering office or the city or municipal government is a partner, alongside the division, and the annual implementation plan should track the line’s progress.
• Flag errors before they become plans. A school that split, merged or received a new ID may carry the wrong shortage in these files; tell the division before the next list is drawn up.

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 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 school is on shifts when it holds classes in two or more shifts at any level in SY 2024-25. 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 and provinces follow the PSGC, with Angeles and Olongapo as highly urbanized cities; 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. Shifts are as schools reported them, by level, and do not show how long each shift is. The SBP list shows planned classrooms, not finished ones. The shortage is DepEd’s own estimate, and new, merged or renumbered schools may be missing or counted under a new ID. Division totals of SBP classrooms leave out the one school with no division in the data. 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 Region III?

DepEd’s 2023 data put Region III’s classroom shortage at 13,119 classrooms, 7.9% of the national shortage of 165,443 and the third largest of any region. Measured against learners it is 5.5 classrooms per 1,000, below the national 7.4, and 49.5% of the region’s public schools have a shortage.

Which province in Region III has the biggest classroom shortage?

Bulacan, short 5,293 classrooms with its cities, 40.3% of the region’s shortage, at 7.8 per 1,000 learners. Among divisions, Bulacan is largest by count (2,996) and the City of San Jose Del Monte highest by rate (11.9).

How many classrooms will Region III get under the SBP 2026?

The SBP 2026 masterlist has 4,103 classrooms for Region III on 621 lines at 590 schools: 2,282 funded under the GAA 2026 with PHP 8.19 billion and 1,821 PSIP III classrooms still for bidding. They equal 31.3% of the region’s 2023 shortage, against 19.6% nationally. The list is a plan; it does not mean the classrooms are built.

How many schools in Central Luzon hold classes in shifts?

In SY 2024-25, 389 Region III schools (10.4%) held classes in two or more shifts, four of them in three, against 4.3% of schools nationally. They enroll 681,012 learners, 28.2% of the region’s total, and 30.6% of them receive SBP 2026 classrooms.

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 for written permission first. How the EDCOM Classroom Data Was Cleaned explains every table and cleaning rule. The files are at data.nash.com.ph: start with the README, then the school table (Parquet, or CSV), the School Building Program lines (CSV), the city and municipality table (CSV), and every table for Stata and SPSS. Every regional figure in this report can be computed from the school table, filtered to Region III by deped_region.

Every file, with its rows, columns and checksum, is listed on the EDCOM II classroom data page. 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 Region III, 2023–2026: Class shifts. NASH Reviewer Blog. https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-3-central-luzon

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, October 20). Put classrooms where they’re needed most, EDCOM 2 tells DepEd [News release]. https://edcom2.gov.ph/put-classrooms-where-theyre-needed-most-edcom-2-tells-deped/

More in this series

• How the EDCOM Classroom Data Was Cleaned
• Philippine Classroom Shortage 2023: Where the Gap Is
• DepEd School Building Program 2026 in Numbers
• Do 2026 Classrooms Go Where the Shortage Is?
• Classroom Allocation by LGU Income Class, 2026
• Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms in DepEd Schools
• Last Mile Schools: Classroom Need and 2026 Allocation
• Regional reports: NCR, CAR, Region I, Region II, Region III, Region IV-A, MIMAROPA, Region V, Region VI, NIR, Region VII, Region VIII, Region IX, Region X, Region XI, Region XII, Caraga, BARMM
• Rankings and deep dives: Congressional districts, Top 20 cities and municipalities, Rizal, Quezon City, City of Manila, Tawi-Tawi, Cavite, Cost of a classroom
• Explainers: PSIP III, Senior high shortage, Junior high shortage, Excess classrooms, Learning Continuity Spaces, How learners reach school
• For teachers and school heads: Action research and thesis topics
• Related: CRLA Results SY 2025-26 in Region III: Ahead in Every Grade, DepEd Classroom and School Building Data, SY 2023-2024, DepEd School Improvement Plan (SIP): Steps, AIP and SRC

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.