Region VI (Western Visayas, often searched as Region 6) lacked 3,522 classrooms in 2023, according to DepEd’s classroom shortage data as published in the EDCOM II classroom construction dashboard. That is 2.1% of the national shortage of 165,443 classrooms, the 15th largest of the 18 regions. Its rate is about half the country’s: 3.5 classrooms short for every 1,000 learners enrolled in SY 2024-25, against 7.4 nationally, the third lowest of any region. In these data the region covers Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras and Iloilo; Negros Occidental is counted in the Negros Island Region (NIR), which has its own report.
A small shortage is not the whole story. Only a third of the region’s schools (33.1%) have a shortage, and its schools report more extra Kindergarten to Grade 10 classrooms, 5,008, than the region is short in all. The School Building Program (SBP) 2026 list, 806 classrooms, does not follow the shortage closely: 44.8% of them go to schools that had no 2023 shortage, nearly twice the national 23.0%, and school by school the list meets 8.0% of the region’s shortage. The one division above the national rate, Roxas City at 7.5, has the region’s lowest coverage, 15.9%.
The figures below come from the cleaned school-level data behind the dashboard. Every file is listed on the EDCOM II classroom data page.
Key findings
- Region VI lacked 3,522 classrooms in 2023, 3.5 for every 1,000 learners against 7.4 nationally, and only 937 of its 2,829 public schools (33.1%) had a shortage, against 54.2% nationally.
- Roxas City is the only one of the eight divisions above the national rate, at 7.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners, and it also has the lowest SBP 2026 coverage, 15.9%.
- Iloilo, the provincial division, holds 1,654 classrooms of shortage, 47.0% of the region’s.
- Of the region’s 806 SBP 2026 classrooms, 361 (44.8%) go to schools with no 2023 shortage, against 23.0% nationally; 129 schools without a shortage receive classrooms, as many as the 129 schools with one.
- Only 14 of the 69 schools short by more than 10 classrooms (20.3%) receive any 2026 classroom, and three of the 10 schools with the largest shortages are on the list.
- All of the region’s 2026 classrooms are funded under the GAA 2026, with PHP 2.58 billion; local governments implement 55.0% of them, and the region has no PSIP III line.
- The median elementary school has 18.9 learners per classroom, against 24.9 nationally, and only 1.0% of schools run shifts.
Region VI against the country
The table sets Western Visayas beside the country, with the same definition in both columns.
| Indicator | Region VI | Philippines |
|---|---|---|
| Schools in the 2023 shortage data | 2,829 | 47,659 |
| Schools with a classroom shortage | 33.1% | 54.2% |
| Classroom shortage (2023) | 3,522 | 165,443 |
| Shortage per 1,000 learners | 3.5 | 7.4 |
| SBP 2026 classrooms | 806 | 32,419 |
| SBP 2026 classrooms as a share of the shortage | 22.9% | 19.6% |
| Schools with a shortage that get any SBP 2026 classroom | 13.8% | 13.3% |
| Schools with two or more shifts (SY 2024-25) | 1.0% | 4.3% |
| Median learners per classroom, elementary | 18.9 | 24.9 |
| Last Mile Schools | 14.0% | 18.5% |
| Schools using makeshift rooms (2023) | 25.4% | 29.0% |
| Schools with a building for condemnation or demolition | 23.0% | 28.9% |
Region VI is below the country on every row that measures need: fewer of its schools have a shortage, run shifts, are Last Mile Schools, use makeshift rooms or report a building for condemnation. The widest gaps are the share of schools with a shortage, 33.1% against 54.2%, and elementary crowding, 18.9 learners per classroom against 24.9. On the 2026 list the region is close to the country: its classrooms equal 22.9% of its shortage, against 19.6%, and reach 13.8% of its schools with a shortage, against 13.3%.
Kindergarten to Grade 10 accounts for 2,672 classrooms of the shortage and senior high school for 850, or 24.1%, a much larger senior high share than the country’s, where Kindergarten to Grade 10 accounts for 89.3% of the shortage. By location, the 2,574 rural schools hold 73.3% of the shortage and the 253 urban schools 26.6%, and the two are short at almost the same rate, 3.6 and 3.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners; nationally, urban schools are short 8.4 and rural schools 6.1. Meanwhile 1,558 schools, more than the 937 with a shortage, report 5,008 more Kindergarten to Grade 10 classrooms than they need. Extra rooms in one school do not reduce another school’s shortage, but the figures suggest that in Western Visayas the gap is as much about where classrooms are as about how many there are.
Classroom shortage by division in Region VI
Region VI has eight schools divisions: five provincial divisions, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, Guimaras and Iloilo, and three city divisions, Iloilo City, Roxas City and Passi City. The chart ranks them by the shortage per 1,000 learners.
Roxas City is the outlier. Its rate, 7.5, is about twice the region’s and more than three times that of Capiz, the province around it, which has the lowest rate in the region, 2.1. Every other division is at 4.3 or below, and the two city divisions of Iloilo province, Iloilo City and Passi City, are near the bottom.
By count, Iloilo dominates: the provincial division is short 1,654 classrooms, 47.0% of the region’s, at a rate of 3.8. Antique comes next with 592, and no other division is short more than 430.
| Division | Schools | Learners (SY 2024-25) | Classroom shortage (2023) | Shortage per 1,000 learners | Schools with a shortage | SBP 2026 classrooms | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roxas City | 50 | 31,074 | 232 | 7.5 | 46.0% | 37 | 15.9% |
| Antique | 535 | 137,605 | 592 | 4.3 | 39.1% | 108 | 18.2% |
| Iloilo | 1,170 | 430,155 | 1,654 | 3.8 | 35.1% | 302 | 18.3% |
| Aklan | 379 | 122,493 | 430 | 3.5 | 30.3% | 100 | 23.2% |
| Iloilo City | 65 | 75,233 | 185 | 2.5 | 36.9% | 49 | 26.4% |
| Guimaras | 115 | 41,069 | 97 | 2.4 | 31.3% | 55 | 56.6% |
| Passi City | 44 | 20,337 | 45 | 2.2 | 31.8% | 32 | 71.1% |
| Capiz | 471 | 134,384 | 286 | 2.1 | 22.3% | 118 | 41.3% |
In Roxas City, 46.0% of schools have a shortage; in Capiz, 22.3% do, and in no division is it more than half. Coverage, the division’s SBP 2026 classrooms as a share of its shortage, runs from 15.9% in Roxas City to 71.1% in Passi City. The three divisions with the highest rates, Roxas City, Antique and Iloilo, have the three lowest coverages (15.9%, 18.2% and 18.3%), while the three with the lowest rates, Capiz, Passi City and Guimaras, have the highest. The division totals leave out five SBP classrooms at one school that has no division in the data; the regional totals include them.
Provinces and cities: Iloilo, Antique, Capiz, Aklan, Guimaras and Iloilo City
The Philippine Standard Geographic Code (PSGC) places Region VI’s schools in five provinces and one highly urbanized city, Iloilo City, which stands apart from Iloilo province. Roxas City and Passi City are component cities, counted in Capiz and Iloilo here, although each has its own schools division.
| Province or city | Cities and municipalities | Schools | Classroom shortage (2023) | Shortage per 1,000 learners | SBP 2026 classrooms | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iloilo | 43 | 1,213 | 1,697 | 3.8 | 336 | 19.8% |
| Antique | 18 | 535 | 592 | 4.3 | 108 | 18.2% |
| Capiz | 17 | 521 | 518 | 3.1 | 155 | 29.9% |
| Aklan | 17 | 379 | 430 | 3.5 | 100 | 23.2% |
| City of Iloilo | 1 | 66 | 187 | 2.3 | 52 | 27.7% |
| Guimaras | 5 | 115 | 97 | 2.4 | 55 | 56.6% |
Iloilo province, with Passi City, holds 1,697 classrooms of shortage, 48.2% of the region’s, and its 2026 list covers 19.8% of it. Antique has the highest provincial rate, 4.3, and the lowest coverage, 18.2%. Capiz, which includes Roxas City, is short 518 classrooms and has 155 on the list (29.9%). The City of Iloilo’s figures differ slightly from the Iloilo City division’s (187 against 185 classrooms short, 52 against 49 SBP classrooms) because a school of the Iloilo provincial division stands inside the city.
Among the region’s 101 cities and municipalities, the City of Roxas has the largest shortage, 240 classrooms, ahead of the City of Iloilo’s 187. Six of the 10 largest are municipalities of Iloilo province:
| City or municipality | Province or city | Income class | Schools | Classroom shortage (2023) | SBP 2026 classrooms | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City of Roxas | Capiz | 2nd | 51 | 240 | 57 | 23.7% |
| City of Iloilo | City of Iloilo | 1st | 67 | 187 | 52 | 27.7% |
| Malay | Aklan | 1st | 16 | 104 | 2 | 1.9% |
| Lambunao | Iloilo | 1st | 60 | 98 | 14 | 14.3% |
| Pavia | Iloilo | 1st | 12 | 91 | 12 | 13.2% |
| Caluya | Antique | 1st | 27 | 89 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Calinog | Iloilo | 1st | 52 | 87 | 6 | 6.9% |
| Carles | Iloilo | 1st | 42 | 85 | 0 | 0.0% |
| Tigbauan | Iloilo | 1st | 30 | 71 | 6 | 8.4% |
| Oton | Iloilo | 1st | 21 | 68 | 7 | 10.3% |
Below the two cities, coverage is low across the table. Two of the 10 have no SBP 2026 classroom at all: Caluya in Antique, short 89, and Carles in Iloilo, short 85. Malay in Aklan, short 104 classrooms across its 16 schools, has two (1.9%). In all, 11 cities and municipalities with a shortage, 348 classrooms between them, have no 2026 classroom, Caluya the largest; 11 others receive more than their shortage, 52 classrooms beyond it in all. The city table follows the PSGC and the masterlist’s own municipality, so the City of Roxas shows 57 SBP classrooms and a shortage of 240, against 37 and 232 for the Roxas City division, because a school of the Capiz division stands inside the city.
Schools with the largest classroom shortages in Region VI
The 10 schools with the largest shortages are mostly national high schools and integrated schools, six of them in Iloilo province or Iloilo City. Together they are short 404 classrooms, 11.5% of the region’s shortage. The school ID identifies each one in 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 302550 | Pavia National High School | Iloilo | Pavia | 5,892 | 57.2 | 64 | 0 | No |
| 302578 | Tigbauan NHS | Iloilo | Tigbauan | 2,872 | 29.9 | 46 | 0 | No |
| 302747 | La Paz NHS | Iloilo City | City of Iloilo | 3,831 | 46.7 | 44 | 0 | Yes |
| 302542 | Oton National High School | Iloilo | Oton | 5,801 | 67.5 | 40 | 3 | Yes |
| 500035 | Numancia Integrated School | Aklan | Numancia | 2,764 | 34.1 | 38 | 0 | No |
| 310705 | Semirara NHS | Antique | Caluya | 1,391 | 42.2 | 38 | 0 | No |
| 302749 | Mandurriao NHS | Iloilo City | City of Iloilo | 3,240 | 49.8 | 36 | 0 | No |
| 302516 | Leonora S. Salapantan NHS | Iloilo | San Miguel | 3,508 | 50.8 | 35 | 3 | No |
| 501073 | Lawa-an Integrated School | Roxas City | City of Roxas | 1,758 | 38.5 | 33 | 4 | Yes |
| 302342 | Antique Vocational School | Antique | Bugasong | 3,537 | 33.1 | 30 | 0 | No |
Pavia National High School has the largest shortage in the region, 64 classrooms, for 5,892 learners, and nothing on the 2026 list. That is small beside the country’s largest school shortage, 319 classrooms at Batasan Hills National HS in Quezon City. Only three of the 10 hold classes in shifts. Semirara NHS, on Semirara Island in Caluya, is short 38 classrooms in a municipality with no 2026 classroom at all.
Three of the 10 are on the SBP 2026 list, each with three or four classrooms: Oton National High School and Leonora S. Salapantan NHS with three, and Lawa-an Integrated School in Roxas City with four. The other seven, short 30 to 64 classrooms each, have none.
The shortage is more concentrated than the country’s. The 283 schools with the largest shortages, the top 10% of the region’s schools, hold 71.7% of it, against 66.0% nationally, and 116 schools, 4.1% of the region’s, hold half. The 76 schools short by 10 or more classrooms hold 40.7%. Among schools with a shortage, the median is 2.0 classrooms. Philippine Classroom Shortage 2023: Where the Gap Is explains these measures.
SBP 2026 classrooms in Region VI
The SBP 2026 list has 276 lines for Region VI, 806 classrooms at 262 schools, all funded under the General Appropriations Act (GAA) 2026 with PHP 2.58 billion. They are 2.5% of the national list, against the region’s 2.1% of the shortage, and equal 22.9% of the region’s shortage.
Every orange bar is shorter than its blue bar. Iloilo’s gap is the largest in classrooms, 302 on the list against 1,654 short, and Roxas City’s the widest for its size, 37 against 232. Guimaras and Passi City come closest to their shortage.
| Modality group | Lines | Schools | Classrooms | Share of the region’s SBP classrooms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DPWH | 75 | 75 | 287 | 35.6% |
| LGU | 140 | 140 | 443 | 55.0% |
| DepEd | 61 | 60 | 76 | 9.4% |
Local governments implement more than half of the region’s 2026 classrooms, 443 (55.0%), against 26.7% of the national list. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) builds 287 (35.6%) and DepEd 76 (9.4%). Region VI has no PSIP III line, so, unlike half of the national list, all of its classrooms already carry a budget. DepEd School Building Program 2026 in Numbers explains the modalities.
Measured against each school’s own shortage, the list fits Region VI less well than it fits the country. Only 281 of its 2026 classrooms (34.9%) fall within the receiving school’s 2023 shortage, against 53.0% nationally, and 361 (44.8%) go to schools with no 2023 shortage, against 23.0%. As many schools without a shortage receive classrooms, 129, as schools with one: 129 of the 937 schools with a shortage, 13.8%. Of the 69 schools short by more than 10 classrooms, 14 (20.3%) receive any. Counted this way, the 2026 list meets 8.0% of the region’s shortage, against 10.4% nationally, and leaves 3,241 classrooms unmet.
A school with no 2023 shortage may still have a reason to build, such as a building condemned since then or growth in enrollment; these data cannot show it. Do 2026 Classrooms Go Where the Shortage Is? explains why, on the 2023 figures, a classroom beyond a school’s own shortage meets no other school’s need.
Class shifts and crowded classrooms in Region VI
Shifts are rare in Western Visayas. In SY 2024-25, 27 of the region’s 2,836 schools in the enrollment data (1.0%) held classes in two or more shifts, none in three, against 4.3% nationally. They enroll 55,675 learners, 5.6% of the region’s total. Of the 27, 85.2% had a shortage, but only six (22.2%) receive SBP 2026 classrooms.
Crowding is low too, above all in elementary. The median school has 18.9 learners per classroom in elementary, 30.4 in junior high and 28.1 in senior high, against 24.9, 32.1 and 30.6 nationally. Only 65 schools have more than 50 learners per classroom, with 5.9% of the learners counted, and bringing each down to 50 would take at least 205 classrooms. Class Shifts and Crowded Classrooms in DepEd Schools explains the measure.
The 2023 facilities data are also below the national figures: 718 schools (25.4%) use makeshift rooms, against 29.0%, and 651 (23.0%) report a building for condemnation or demolition, 1,154 buildings in all, against 28.9%.
Last Mile Schools in Region VI
395 of the region’s schools (14.0%) are flagged as Last Mile Schools, schools in geographically isolated, disadvantaged and conflict-affected areas and hardship posts, below the national 18.5%. They hold 459 classrooms of shortage, 13.0% of the region’s.
The gap between them and the region’s other schools is wide. 61.5% of the region’s Last Mile Schools have a shortage, the same share as Last Mile Schools nationally, against 28.5% of its other schools, more than twice the share. The 2026 list treats the two groups about the same: 9.6% of Last Mile Schools receive a classroom, against 9.0% of other schools, with 74 classrooms between them. That leaves 219 Last Mile Schools with a shortage, 408 classrooms in all, with none. DepEd’s own Last Mile School modality has six lines with 21 classrooms in the region. Last Mile Schools: Classroom Need and 2026 Allocation compares them nationally.
What this means for school heads in Region VI
In a region where two in three schools have no shortage, a school that does have one needs to make its case clearly, because the 2026 list does not find it on its own.
- Know where your school stands. Look up your school ID in the school table to see your 2023 shortage, learners per classroom and any SBP 2026 lines; the EDCOM II classroom data page links every file. Of the 937 schools with a shortage, 129 receive any classroom, so a school with a shortage and no line is in the majority, not an exception.
- In Roxas City, lead with the rate. The division is short 7.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners, the only one in the region above the national rate, and has classrooms for 15.9% of its shortage.
- Work with the LGU. Local governments implement 55.0% of the region’s 2026 classrooms, so the city, municipal or provincial government is a direct partner in any request, especially in the 11 cities and municipalities with a shortage and no 2026 classroom.
- For Last Mile Schools, write the need down. Most of the region’s Last Mile Schools have a shortage, against fewer than a third of other schools. Record it with its year and source in the school improvement plan and the annual implementation plan.
- Check the record before you cite it. If your school’s figures look wrong, a new school ID, a merged annex, a missing building, raise it with the division before the data are used for planning; a school recorded with no shortage will not be read as needing classrooms.
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 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; classrooms at a school with no 2023 shortage are counted separately. Regions follow the PSGC, with Region VI separate from the Negros Island Region (NIR), so Negros Occidental and its cities are not in these figures; 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, and a school with no shortage in 2023 may have one now. 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 Western Visayas?
DepEd’s 2023 data put Region VI’s classroom shortage at 3,522 classrooms, 2.1% of the national shortage of 165,443. That is 3.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners, against 7.4 nationally, and 33.1% of the region’s public schools have a shortage, against 54.2% nationally.
Which division in Region VI has the biggest classroom shortage?
By count, Iloilo, the provincial division, with 1,654 classrooms, 47.0% of the region’s shortage. By rate, Roxas City, short 7.5 classrooms per 1,000 learners, the only division in the region above the national 7.4.
How many classrooms will Region VI get under the SBP 2026?
The SBP 2026 masterlist has 806 classrooms for Region VI on 276 lines at 262 schools, all funded under the GAA 2026 with PHP 2.58 billion and none under PSIP III. They equal 22.9% of the region’s 2023 shortage, against 19.6% nationally. The list is a plan; it does not mean the classrooms are built.
Do Region VI’s SBP 2026 classrooms go to schools with a shortage?
Fewer than in the country as a whole. Of the 806 classrooms, 281 (34.9%) fall within a receiving school’s own 2023 shortage and 361 (44.8%) go to schools with no 2023 shortage, against 53.0% and 23.0% nationally. 129 of the region’s 937 schools with a shortage receive any classroom, and so do 129 schools without one.
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 VI 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 VI, 2023–2026: Iloilo and Roxas. NASH Reviewer Blog. https://nash.com.ph/blog/classroom-shortage-region-6-western-visayas
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
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 VI: Iloilo City Stands Out, DepEd Classroom and School Building Data, SY 2023-2024, How to Read DepEd Data: A Guide for Aspiring School Heads
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.