How Philippine Education Became Centralized, 1901-2001

Philippine public education was centralized by its first law. Act No. 74 of the Philippine Commission, enacted on January 21, 1901, created a Department of Public Instruction and gave one officer in Manila, the General Superintendent, the power to appoint superintendents and teachers, fix the curriculum, draw the school divisions, prescribe schoolhouse plans and buy school supplies for the whole archipelago.

The hundred years that followed moved more to the center than away from it. The National Government took over the support of the elementary schools in 1940 and of every public high school in 1987 and 1988, and from 1982 one Ministry administered every level of education, public and private. The moves outward handed local governments a tax, a board and a seat at the table. They did not hand over the schools, the teachers or the curriculum.

Republic Act No. 9155, the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, closed the century by listing what each level holds, down to the school head. None of the laws before it on this timeline had given the head of a school a list of powers. A school head who knows the history can tell which of today’s habits come from the law and which are only a hundred years old.

Key findings

• One officer held thirteen listed powers in 1901. The General Superintendent of Public Instruction, appointed by the Philippine Commission, appointed the superintendents, teachers and clerks, fixed salaries and the curriculum, and divided the country into not more than ten school divisions (Act No. 74, Sec. 3).
• Local say was thin from the first day. Each municipal council paid for its schools “by local taxation”. The local school board could visit, report and recommend; its one rule-making power, assigning pupils among a town’s schools, was “subject to the supervision of the division superintendent”; and half of its members were appointed by that superintendent (Act No. 74, Secs. 10, 12 and 13).
• Education was the one department kept from Filipino hands in 1916. The Reorganization Act required department secretaries to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, “With the exception of the Secretary of Public Instruction”, who was the American Vice-Governor (Act No. 2666, Sec. 1; Jones Law, Sec. 23).
• The payroll moved to the center twice. The Educational Act of 1940 made the National Government the support of public elementary education and closed the municipal school fund (Commonwealth Act No. 586, Secs. 7 and 9). In 1987 and 1988 the public high schools and their teachers followed (Executive Order No. 189, s. 1987; Republic Act No. 6655, Sec. 7).
• By 1982 one Ministry ran everything. Batas Pambansa Blg. 232 covers “both formal and non-formal systems in public and private schools in all levels of the entire educational system” and vests its administration in the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (Secs. 2 and 54).
• Trifocalization narrowed the Department; it did not decentralize it. The laws that created the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in 1994 moved two bureaus to other national agencies (Republic Act No. 7722, Sec. 18; Republic Act No. 7796, Sec. 5).
• Centralization was criticized as early as 1925. The Monroe Survey warned that a system “carried on in all of its details by a central office” becomes “a bureaucratic organization which depends almost wholly upon the maintenance of rigid routine” (p. 86).

Philippine education governance timeline, 1901 to 2001

The timeline has fifteen stops: thirteen laws and two reviews. Each stop shows the line of authority at that date, the offices under the department, who paid for the elementary schools and the high schools, and what the law moved toward the center, away from it, or across to another national agency.

Timeline

A century of school governance, 1901 to 2001

From 1901 to 2001 the payroll, the high schools and the rules for every level of schooling moved to the national office. What moved outward was a local tax, a seat on a board and, in 2001, a list of powers for each level.

Play the century

Opens each stop in turn, from Act No. 74 to Republic Act No. 9155.

19011925195019752001

Department of Public InstructionNamed by Act No. 74, Sec. 1

1901Act No. 741902Bureau of Education1916Jones Law1925Monroe Survey1940Educational Act1947Department of Education1968Special Education Fund1972Regional offices1982Education Act1987DECS1988High schools1991Local Government Code1991EDCOM1994Trifocalization2001RA 9155

January 21, 1901 · LawOne officer in Manila runs every public school

Act No. 74 of the Philippine Commission created the public school system and placed it under one officer, the General Superintendent of Public Instruction. Towns paid for their schools and had school boards, but a board could do little more than visit, report and recommend, and half of its members were named by the division superintendent.

The line of authority

1. General Superintendent of Public InstructionNew in 1901Appointed by the Philippine Commission. Appoints the superintendents, teachers and clerks, fixes the curriculum, draws the school divisions, prescribes schoolhouse plans and contracts for supplies.
2. Division superintendentNew in 1901One for each of not more than ten school divisions; Manila is one of them, under a City Superintendent. Appoints the Filipino teachers of the division and fixes their salaries, and sees that the prescribed curriculum is followed.
3. Principal teacherNew in 1901A teacher who also has charge of the school, with the authority over the other teachers that the head of the bureau prescribes.
4. Superior advisory board of education (beside the line)New in 1901The General Superintendent and four members appointed by the Commission. It advises him and recommends changes in the law.
5. Local school board (beside the line)New in 1901In each municipality: four or six members, half elected by the municipal council and half appointed by the division superintendent, with the municipal president. It visits the schools, reports on them, recommends sites and, under the superintendent's supervision, assigns pupils among the town's schools.

Under the department

• Public primary and secondary schoolsNew
• Normal School, ManilaNew
• Trade School, ManilaNew
• School of Agriculture, NegrosNew

Act No. 74, Secs. 2 and 17 to 19

Who paid for the schools

Elementary schools

The municipality. The municipal council supports the schools of the pueblo by local taxation. The trained teachers brought from the United States are paid from the Insular Treasury. Act No. 74, Secs. 3(i), 13 and 15

High schools

The municipality. The General Superintendent decides in which towns secondary schools are established. The municipal council supports all the schools within its jurisdiction. Act No. 74, Secs. 3(d) and 13

What moved

• Toward the centerAppointments, salaries, the curriculum, the boundaries of school divisions, schoolhouse plans and school supplies are all placed with the General Superintendent.Act No. 74, Sec. 3
• Toward the centerHe decides which towns receive English teachers, and may favor "those towns showing their loyalty to the United States by their peaceful conditions."Act No. 74, Sec. 3(i)
• Away from the centerEvery pueblo is a school district. Its municipal council raises the money for its schools, and its school board reports on them and assigns pupils among them.Act No. 74, Secs. 10, 12 and 13

Sources: Act No. 74 (January 21, 1901), Secs. 1 to 4, 9 to 13, 15 and 17 to 19

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• Toward the center
• Away from the center
• Across to another national agency
• A board beside the line

Acts of the Philippine Commission and Legislature, Commonwealth Acts, Republic Acts, executive orders and the Constitutions of 1935, 1973 and 1987, as cited at each stop

Who appointed whom under Act No. 74 in 1901

Act No. 74 is twenty-seven sections long. Its third section lists thirteen powers, lettered (a) to (m), and gives all of them to the General Superintendent of Public Instruction, “to be exercised and discharged under the general supervision of the Military Governor”. The Commission appointed the General Superintendent, and almost every other appointment in the school system then ran through that one office.

Table 1. Appointments under Act No. 74 (January 21, 1901)

The General Superintendent’s other powers reached into every school. The office fixed “a curriculum for primary, secondary, and other public schools”, decided in which towns secondary schools would be established, prescribed “plans for the construction of schoolhouses to be built by the municipalities”, contracted for school supplies, and passed on every division superintendent’s request for funds (Sec. 3(d), (g), (h) and (k)).

One power tied schooling to politics. The General Superintendent decided the towns in which English teachers paid from the Insular Treasury would teach, and “may exercise this discretion in favor of those towns showing their loyalty to the United States by their peaceful conditions, and in favor of those towns which shall construct and maintain suitable schoolhouses by local taxation or contributions” (Sec. 3(i)).

What the Act left to the towns was the bill. “Every pueblo shall constitute a school district and it shall be the duty of the municipal council thereof to make as ample provision as possible by local taxation for the support of all the schools established within its jurisdiction” (Sec. 13). The Municipal Code, enacted ten days later, set aside the proceeds of a land tax of at least one-fourth of one percent “exclusively to the support of free public primary schools” and school buildings (Act No. 82, Sec. 43(b)).

The local school board had a voice and almost no power of its own. It could visit the schools and report bi-monthly to the division superintendent, recommend sites and plans to the municipal council, and report each year “the amount of money which should be raised for the current year by local taxation for school purposes”. Where a town had two or more schools it could adopt rules for assigning pupils among them, “subject to the supervision of the division superintendent” (Sec. 12). Its appointed and elected members alike could be removed by the division superintendent, with the General Superintendent’s approval (Sec. 11).

Why the American school system stayed centralized, 1902 to 1935

The structure of 1901 was tightened, then kept. On September 6, 1901, Act No. 222 organized four executive departments, each under a Secretary. The Department of Public Instruction received six bureaus: public instruction; public charities, public libraries and museums; statistics; public records; public printing; and the architecture and construction of public buildings (Sec. 4).

Act No. 477 of October 8, 1902 turned the school system into the Bureau of Education “under the executive control of the Department of Public Instruction”. It changed five things:

• The head of the system became the General Superintendent of Education, appointed by the Civil Governor “with the advice and consent of the Commission”, whose own appointments now needed the Secretary’s approval.
• The law itself divided the country into 36 school divisions. In four of them the provincial governor acted as division superintendent.
• The clause favoring loyal towns was dropped. The clause favoring towns that built schoolhouses stayed.
• Secondary schools became a charge of the provinces: instruction “in the schools established by the several provinces” was to be free at least to pupils living in the province. Act No. 372, seven months earlier, had let each provincial board build and maintain them.
• Division superintendents were told to appoint only as many teachers, at such salaries, “as the funds of the province or the municipality concerned may warrant”.

In 1905 the head of the bureau was retitled Director of Education, appointed by the Governor-General (Act No. 1407, Sec. 23).

The Jones Law of 1916 promised independence and widened Filipino self-government. On schools it went the other way. The Vice-Governor, appointed by the President of the United States with the consent of the United States Senate, “shall be the head of the executive department, known as the Department of Public Instruction, which shall include the Bureau of Education and the Bureau of Health” (Sec. 23). The Philippine Legislature’s own reorganization law, Act No. 2666, then required department secretaries to be citizens of the Philippine Islands, “With the exception of the Secretary of Public Instruction” (Sec. 1). The next year, Act No. 2706 made it the Secretary’s duty “to maintain a general standard of efficiency in all private schools and colleges” and to inspect them (Sec. 1).

The Revised Administrative Code of 1917 (Act No. 2711) restated the school law almost as Act No. 74 had left it. “To the Bureau of Education is committed the administration of the public-school system and the supervision of the general school interests of the Philippine Islands” (Sec. 909). The Director of Education established the school divisions, with the Secretary’s approval (Sec. 914). The division superintendent appointed the municipal school teachers and fixed their salaries “within the limits of the funds appropriated by the municipal council” (Sec. 917(c)). Every municipality was still a school district whose council was to provide for its schools “by local taxation” (Sec. 919), and the local school board remained, half elected by the municipal council and half appointed by the division superintendent (Secs. 920 and 921). Provincial boards could establish and maintain provincial schools, and “for higher instruction the provincial board may, subject to the approval of the Director of Education, require moderate tuition fees” (Secs. 2123 and 2124). Only primary instruction was free by law (Sec. 924).

One level of the hierarchy is in no school law of the period. In September 1904 the General Superintendent reported that, during the past year, “a system of school districts has been organized, each in charge of an American supervising teacher” (Annual Report, p. 13). The 1917 Code names neither the district as a unit of supervision nor the supervising teacher, the officer who became the district supervisor.

What the Monroe Survey found in 1925

The first full review of the system, A Survey of the Educational System of the Philippine Islands by the Board of Educational Survey under Paul Monroe, described the result. “Education in the Philippines is not merely a public institution. It is a direct function of the central government” (p. 521). In December 1924 the Bureau of Education had 49 school divisions and four Insular schools under division superintendents, 38 of whom were Americans, and 497 supervising teachers, one for each school district (pp. 523 and 524). The survey set out the chain of command in the bureau’s own words:

“Division superintendents are appointed by the Director of Education and to him they are thus held directly responsible. … Principals of municipal and barrio schools are held responsible directly to district supervisors, indirectly to division superintendents, and through division superintendents, to the Director of Education.” (p. 524)

The survey gave central control its due. “That administrative success has been largely due to a highly centralized control will also be generally admitted”, it said, and such control was “now desirable and perhaps will be for years to come” (pp. 62 and 63). Then it listed the costs. Supervision by paper report was unreliable. “A third disadvantage growing out of this centralization and standardization of the system is that the entire system takes on a mechanical nature” (p. 64). For the high schools it put the choice plainly: “Either there should be much greater local autonomy or there should be much more direct personal supervision from the central office” (p. 72).

Money explained much of it. In 1923 about 65 percent of all taxes were levied and collected by the Insular Government, 21 percent by municipalities and chartered cities and 14 percent by provinces (p. 81). The schools followed the taxes: “almost three-fourths of the revenues devoted to school purposes continue to come from the Insular Government” (p. 85). The survey found the Insular Government “greatly burdened by the expense of maintaining the elementary schools” and proposed that municipalities be allowed to tax for them, since “because of a highly centralized form of administration the present system puts an abnormal burden upon the central government” (pp. 85 and 86). A 2025 study for the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) by Laguda, Aquino, Cangayao and Tagle draws the same line: schools were meant to be financed by municipal and provincial governments, most could not afford them, and dependence on the central department cost local schools “a large degree of autonomy in matters such as curriculum and educational material, and the capacity to innovate and respond” (p. 18, quoting Apilado, 2008).

For the commissions that came after Monroe, see 100 Years After the Monroe Report.

How the National Government took over the elementary schools in 1940

The 1935 Constitution wrote State control into the fundamental law: “All educational institutions shall be under the supervision of and subject to regulation by the State. The Government shall establish and maintain a complete and adequate system of public education, and shall provide at least free public primary instruction” (Art. XIV, Sec. 5, as amended). Commonwealth Act No. 180 of 1936 gave the Secretary of Public Instruction an Office of Private Education to supervise and regulate private schools.

The Monroe Survey had asked for more local taxation. Commonwealth Act No. 586, the Educational Act of 1940, did the opposite:

• From school year 1940-1941, public elementary education, primary and intermediate, was to be supported by the National Government. Chartered cities kept paying for their own intermediate classes (Sec. 7).
• The school fund of every municipality and municipal district was “disestablished”, and a share of the residence tax and other taxes went to the National Government to pay for the schools (Secs. 8 and 9).
• The Department of Public Instruction was to revise the elementary curriculum, and the revised curriculum, “once approved by the President of the Philippines”, was to be adopted in all public schools not later than school year 1941-1942 (Sec. 3).
• Municipalities, municipal districts and chartered cities still acquired the sites for schoolhouses (Sec. 7).

The Act made a rule of what the central government had largely been paying since the 1920s. From 1940 a municipality provided the land and the National Government provided the teacher, the salary and the curriculum. During the Japanese occupation the department was renamed more than once, and after the war it was the Department of Instruction, as DepEd’s own history records.

The Department of Education and the Special Education Fund, 1947 to 1972

Executive Order No. 94, signed on October 4, 1947, reorganized the government of the new Republic. “The Department of Instruction shall hereafter be known as the Department of Education; the Bureau of Education as the Bureau of Public Schools; the Office of Private Education as the Bureau of Private Schools; and the National Library as the Bureau of Public Libraries” (Sec. 83). The Department also supervised the Board on Textbooks, the Institute of National Language and the Philippine Historical Committee (Sec. 84).

In 1954 Congress placed a board over policy. Republic Act No. 1124 created a Board of National Education of fifteen members, chaired by the Secretary of Education, to “formulate, implement and enforce general educational objectives and policies” and to coordinate “all educational institutions in the country” (Secs. 1 to 3). It was to be “the exclusive agency of the Government for the implementation of educational policies and the direction of the educational interests of the nation” (Sec. 5).

The one large move outward in these years was a tax. Republic Act No. 5447 of September 25, 1968 created the Special Education Fund (SEF) from an additional 1 percent tax on real property and a share of the taxes on Virginia-type cigarettes and imported leaf tobacco, and a Provincial, City or Municipal School Board in every local government to budget it (Secs. 1, 4 and 5). Three features kept the fund close to the Department:

• The purposes were the Department’s. The fund “shall be expended exclusively for the following activities of the Department of Education”, eleven of them, from extension classes and school buildings to textbooks, teachers’ salary adjustments and athletic meets (Sec. 1).
• The chair was the Department’s. The division superintendent chaired the provincial board, the city superintendent the city board and the district supervisor the municipal board. The other four members were a representative of the governor or mayor, the treasurer, a member of the local council and a representative of the parents-teachers associations (Sec. 5).
• Appeals went to Manila. A board’s budget was final unless appealed within fifteen days to the Director of Public Schools or the Director of the Bureau of Vocational Education, “for final decision” (Sec. 7).

High schools were still a local matter. The Barrio High School Charter of 1969 says so in its preamble: “of the three levels of instruction, the support of the high school has been entrusted to local government and/or to the people” (Republic Act No. 6054). What the fund may pay for, from 1968 to the 2025 joint circular, is in SEF Allowable Expenses, Law by Law: 1968 to 2025.

Regional offices and the Ministry, 1972 to 1986

Presidential Decree No. 1, dated September 24, 1972, adopted the Integrated Reorganization Plan for the whole executive branch. For education the Plan did three things:

• A new name. The Department of Education became the Department of Education and Culture. A decree issued five days later already uses the name.
• One regional director for every level. Each of the old bureaus had kept its own regional offices (Sanyal and others, p. 91). The Plan divided the country into eleven regions and put one regional director of the Department over all levels of education in each. By December 31, 1972 a Letter of Implementation lists the regional directors of “Education and Culture” among the members of each Regional Development Council (Letter of Implementation No. 22, Secs. 3 and 6). DepEd’s history records that “Thirteen regional offices were created and major organizational changes were implemented in the educational system”.
• Staff bureaus in place of line bureaus. The Bureau of Public Schools (the old Bureau of Education), the Bureau of Vocational Education and the Bureau of Private Schools gave way to bureaus by level. By February 1973 “The Director of the Bureau of Elementary Education and the Director of the Bureau of Secondary Education shall replace the Director of Public Schools and the Director of Private Schools” on the Textbook Board (Presidential Decree No. 128). A 1981 UNESCO study describes the result: “three bureaus performing staff functions for the Minister, an office of Planning Services, and the various regional directors with line authority over all levels of education in their respective regions” (Sanyal and others, pp. 90 and 91).

The line of command now ran from the Secretary through a regional director to the division superintendent. The Department had placed its own officers closer to the schools. Ten years later the Education Act of 1982 spelled out what a regional office was for: to plan from the Ministry’s national plan and to implement the Ministry’s rules.

Five days after Presidential Decree No. 1, on September 29, 1972, Presidential Decree No. 6-A, the Educational Development Decree of 1972, set out the principles of a ten-year program. One of them reads like a promise of decentralization: “Instituting reform in the educational financing system to facilitate the shift of funding responsibility for elementary and secondary education from the national to the local government” (Sec. 4(f)). No later law on this timeline carried it out. Fifteen years later the high schools moved the other way.

The 1973 Constitution required “a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to goals of national development”, free public elementary education, and free public secondary education “in areas where finances permit” (Art. XV, Sec. 8). In 1978 the departments became ministries (Presidential Decree No. 1397, Sec. 1).

Batas Pambansa Blg. 232, the Education Act of 1982, gathered the whole system under one law and one Ministry:

• Scope. The Act applies to “both formal and non-formal systems in public and private schools in all levels of the entire educational system” (Sec. 2), and “The administration of the education system and … the supervision and regulation of educational institutions are hereby vested in the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports” (Sec. 54).
• The national board. “The National Board of Education is hereby abolished”, and its appropriations, personnel, records and equipment went to the Office of the Minister (Sec. 56).
• The bureaus. Five bureaus covered elementary, secondary, technical and vocational, higher and continuing education (Secs. 62 to 66).
• The regions. A regional office was to “Formulate the regional plan of education based on the national plan of the Ministry taking into account the specific needs and special traditions of the region”, and to “Implement education laws, policies, plans, programs, rules and regulations of the Ministry” (Sec. 67).
• The money. “Public school shall continue to be funded from national funds”, while provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays were to appropriate funds each year for public secondary schools, with national aid (Secs. 34 to 36).

The Act also pointed outward twice. Local governments “shall be encouraged to assume operation of local public schools” (Sec. 34), and “Each school shall establish such internal organization as will best enable it to carry out its academic and administrative functions” (Sec. 30). Neither provision moved a power the Ministry held. The Laguda study reads the Act the same way: regional offices implemented national plans and policies, “with discretion only on addressing specific local needs” (p. 19).

DECS and the nationalization of public high schools, 1987 to 1988

Executive Order No. 117 of January 30, 1987 reorganized the Ministry while the new Constitution was still awaiting adoption. Its mandate ran to “formal and non-formal education at all levels” and the supervision of “all education institutions, both public and private” (Sec. 4). It gave the Minister five deputies (Sec. 10) and six bureaus (Secs. 11 to 16), attached the National Museum, the National Library, the National Historical Institute and the Institute of Philippine Languages (Sec. 17), and set a Regional Office in each administrative region, whose Regional Director “shall be responsible for the School Divisions and their Superintendents within his administrative region” (Sec. 23). Under Section 27 and Administrative Order No. 15 of February 11, 1987, the Ministry became the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS).

The 1987 Constitution asked for two things that pull apart. The State must “Establish and maintain, a system of free public education in the elementary and high school levels” (Art. XIV, Sec. 2(2)). It must also “take into account regional and sectoral needs and conditions and shall encourage local planning in the development of educational policies and programs” (Art. XIV, Sec. 5(1)).

The first was done by nationalizing the high schools:

1. June 10, 1987. Executive Order No. 189 placed “All public secondary school teachers … under the administrative supervision and control of the department of Education, Culture and Sports”, with their basic salaries and cost of living allowances “paid by the national government” (Sec. 1). To help pay for it, “Starting July 1, 1987, 80 percent of all collections accruing to the Special Education Funds shall be remitted immediately to the National Treasury” (Sec. 5).
2. May 26, 1988. Republic Act No. 6655, the Free Public Secondary Education Act of 1988, vested in DECS “the establishment, renaming, conversion, integration, separation, administration, supervision and control of all public secondary schools and public secondary school teachers and other school personnel, including the payment of their salaries” (Sec. 7). The law names the schools it covers: national high schools and those “established, administered, maintained and funded by local government units, including city, provincial municipal and barangay high schools” (Sec. 3).

With that, the last public schools that local governments had run and paid for became national schools.

The Local Government Code and EDCOM in 1991

Republic Act No. 7160, the Local Government Code of 1991, was approved on October 10, 1991 and took effect on January 1, 1992. It handed health, social welfare and agricultural extension services to local governments (Sec. 17). For public schools, the list of municipal services names only “school buildings and other facilities for public elementary and secondary schools”, funded out of municipal funds (Sec. 17(b)(2)(viii)). What the Code changed was the fund and the board:

• A province or city, or a municipality in Metropolitan Manila, levies the additional 1 percent real property tax, and its proceeds “shall be automatically released to the local school boards” (Secs. 235 and 272).
• The governor or mayor became co-chairman of the Local School Board with the division superintendent or district supervisor (Sec. 98). Under the 1968 law the Department’s officer had chaired alone.
• “The Department of Education, Culture and Sports shall consult the local school board on the appointment of division superintendents, district supervisors, school principals, and other school officials” (Sec. 99). The appointment itself stayed with DECS.
• The board still determines its budget “in accordance with the criteria set by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports” (Sec. 99(a)).

The guide to Local School Boards and the Special Education Fund covers how the fund works today.

In the same year the Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) reported in Making Education Work: An Agenda for Reform. As the Laguda study summarizes it, EDCOM found DECS “a huge bureaucracy that administered and supervised almost every aspect of education”, with unclear lines of authority between the central, regional and division offices (p. 21). It recommended that:

• DECS concentrate on elementary and secondary education, with new bodies for higher education and for early childhood care and development, and technical education assigned to other agencies;
• regional offices keep to coordinating and monitoring, “by deconcentrating authority, powers, and responsibilities to Divisions”;
• the division superintendent become a “Division Educational Manager”, responsible for school building programs, with the division handling procurement, payroll disbursements and the appointment of teachers; and
• the principal become an instructional manager, “directly responsible for the school’s academic achievement” (Laguda et al., pp. 21 and 22).

DECS did not agree that it needed restructuring. EDCOM II’s Final Report records that DECS had launched a “1990 Decentralization Program, implemented in January 1991”, which moved school supervision and the authority over permits and recognition to the regional offices, and that the Secretary told EDCOM this program had “adequately responded” to the governance issues raised (p. 603).

Trifocalization: CHED and TESDA in 1994

Congress acted on the first recommendation. Republic Act No. 7722, the Higher Education Act of 1994, approved on May 18, 1994, created the Commission on Higher Education and transferred to it the “personnel, properties, assets and liabilities, functions and responsibilities of the Bureau of Higher Education”, along with higher education in the DECS regional offices (Secs. 3 and 18). Republic Act No. 7796, the TESDA Act of 1994, approved on August 25, 1994, created an authority to “replace and absorb” the Bureau of Technical and Vocational Education and the technical-vocational personnel and functions of the DECS regional offices (Sec. 5).

The two laws split one agency into three, hence “trifocalization”. DepEd’s Basic Education Development Plan 2030, adopted by DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2022, describes the three as DECS “for basic education”, TESDA for technical and vocational education and training, and CHED “for tertiary education” (Sec. 2.2).

Culture and sports followed in 1999. Executive Order No. 80 moved the National Historical Institute, the National Library and the Records Management and Archives Office from DECS to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and Executive Order No. 81 transferred DECS’s sports development functions to the Philippine Sports Commission, both on March 5, 1999.

Every one of these moves was sideways, from one national agency to another. None gave a region, a division or a school a power it did not already have. The Laguda study makes the point in structural terms: the government “narrowed DECS’s horizontal structure” and at the same time “increased hierarchical definition within its vertical structure” (p. 22).

What RA 9155 changed in 2001, and what it kept

Republic Act No. 9155, which lapsed into law on August 11, 2001, did four things the earlier laws had not.

1. It limited the Department to basic education. “The Department of Education, Culture and Sports shall henceforth be called the Department of Education”, vested with “authority, accountability and responsibility for ensuring access to, promoting equity in, and improving the quality of basic education” (Sec. 6). The cultural agencies were attached to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and the Bureau of Physical Education and School Sports was abolished, its sports competition work going to the Philippine Sports Commission (Secs. 8 and 9).
2. It listed powers for every level, down to the school head. Act No. 74 had listed them for the General Superintendent, the division superintendent and the local school board, and left the principal teacher’s authority for the General Superintendent to prescribe (Secs. 3, 9 and 12). The Education Act of 1982 gave school administrators obligations and “sufficient administrative discretion” (Secs. 12 and 17), but no list of what they decide. Section 7 of RA 9155 gives the Secretary, the regional director, the schools division superintendent, the schools district supervisor and the school head each a list of what they hold. The school head has twelve items, from “Setting the mission, vision, goals and objectives of the school” to “Administering and managing all personnel, physical and fiscal resources of the school” (Sec. 7(E)).
3. It moved hiring down. The schools division superintendent hires, places and evaluates “all division supervisors and schools district supervisors as well as all employees in the division, both teaching and non-teaching personnel, including school heads” (Sec. 7(C)(3)). In 1901 the General Superintendent in Manila had appointed even the clerks.
4. It named a principle. Shared governance “recognizes that every unit in the education bureaucracy has a particular role, task and responsibility inherent in the office and for which it is principally accountable for outcomes” (Sec. 5(a)). The school is “the heart of the formal education system”, and the Secretary was to “fully implement the principle of shared governance within two (2) years after the approval of this Act” (Secs. 2 and 14).

The law also kept the old direction of travel. “Governance of basic education shall begin at the national level”, and the lists for the regional director, the schools division superintendent and the school head each open with the words “Consistent with the national educational policies, plans and standards” (Secs. 2 and 7). The Laguda study adds what the law left out of EDCOM’s 1991 proposals: authority was not deconcentrated from regions to divisions, and divisions received no explicit authority over school building programs or procurement (p. 23).

Twenty-one years later DepEd said the same of itself. The Basic Education Development Plan 2030 states: “While RA 9155 and other capacity-building efforts have laid down the policy framework for shared governance, the full implementation of the spirit of the law is yet to be realized” (Sec. 3.4). EDCOM II’s Final Report, published in January 2026, sums up the century’s reorganizations as “a department repeatedly restructured yet persistently unable to achieve its core objectives” (p. 387).

Two guides take the story from here: Who Decides What in DepEd? RA 9155’s Five Levels sets out each level’s powers, and RA 9155 at 25: Why Shared Governance Has Not Happened covers what EDCOM II found.

What moved to the center and what moved away, 1901 to 2001

Table 2. The main changes in who decides and who pays, 1901 to 2001

Read down the last column and a pattern shows. What moved to the center was the power to appoint, the payroll, the curriculum and the schools themselves. What moved away was a duty to pay (1901, 1902), a fund with listed purposes (1968), a regional office that implements (1972), a seat and a right to be consulted (1991), and finally, in 2001, a list of powers to be used “consistent with” national policy. The Laguda study’s first finding is that DepEd’s “long history of centralization and entrenched culture of control and over-compliance makes it resistant to reform” (p. 41).

What this means for school heads

1. Read your authority from the law. The twelve items of Section 7(E) of RA 9155 are yours by statute, to be used “Consistent with the national educational policies, plans and standards”. Within those, the habit of waiting for a division memorandum before acting has no section number. RA 9155 Duties of DepEd School Heads goes through each one, and the first strand it serves is policy implementation and review in PPSSH Domain 1.
2. Know which money is national and which is local. Since 1940 and 1988 the teachers and the school’s operating funds come from the national budget; see School MOOE. The Special Education Fund has been a local fund since 1968. From July 1987 four-fifths of its collections went to the National Treasury, and under the Local Government Code its proceeds are released to the Local School Board, which decides the budget (Republic Act No. 7160, Secs. 99 and 272). Financial management is a strand of PPSSH Domain 2.
3. Use the local seat the Code gives. The Local School Board is co-chaired by your governor or mayor, and DECS, now DepEd, must consult it on appointments (Republic Act No. 7160, Secs. 98 and 99). The school’s needs reach the board through its DepEd co-chairman, the division superintendent or the district supervisor. This is community engagement in PPSSH Domain 5.
4. Expect reform to arrive as reorganization, and ask what it changes at the school. The laws of 1947, 1972, 1982, 1987 and 1994 each rearranged offices above the school. Of the fifteen stops on the timeline, only RA 9155 lists what a school head may decide. When a new structure is announced, the useful question is the one RA 9155 asked: which decision moves, and to whom.
5. Do not mistake a task for a power. A regional office that implements the Ministry’s plans and a board that budgets by the Department’s criteria were both given work without the decision that goes with it. A school head who delegates to teachers faces the same choice: hand over the decision with the work, or keep both.

Frequently asked questions

When was the Department of Education established?

The Department traces its start to January 21, 1901, when Act No. 74 created the Department of Public Instruction. It was named the Department of Education by Executive Order No. 94, signed on October 4, 1947, became the Department of Education and Culture in 1972, a Ministry in 1978, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports under the Education Act of 1982, and the Department of Education, Culture and Sports in 1987. Republic Act No. 9155, which became law on August 11, 2001, restored the name Department of Education.

What is the trifocalization of Philippine education?

Trifocalization is the division of the education sector among three national agencies in 1994. Republic Act No. 7722 created the Commission on Higher Education for higher education, Republic Act No. 7796 created TESDA for technical education and skills development, and DECS, now DepEd, kept basic education. It followed a recommendation of the first Congressional Commission on Education in 1991.

Did the Local Government Code devolve public schools to local governments?

No. The Local Government Code of 1991 devolved health, social welfare and agricultural extension services, but for public schools Section 17 names only school buildings and other facilities funded by the municipality. The Code released the Special Education Fund to the Local School Boards (Secs. 235 and 272) and required DECS to consult the board on the appointment of school officials (Sec. 99). Teachers, the curriculum and the running of schools stayed national.

When did public high schools become national schools?

In 1987 and 1988. Executive Order No. 189 of June 10, 1987 placed all public secondary school teachers under DECS and on the national payroll. Republic Act No. 6655 of May 26, 1988 then vested in DECS the administration, supervision and control of all public secondary schools, including provincial, city, municipal and barangay high schools (Secs. 3 and 7).

How many school divisions were there in 1901, and how many are there now?

Act No. 74 allowed “not more than ten” school divisions in 1901, and Act No. 477 fixed 36 in 1902. The Monroe Survey counted 49 in December 1924. DepEd’s Basic Education Development Plan 2030 counted 16 Regional Offices outside the Bangsamoro region and 214 Schools Division Offices in May 2022. DepEd’s enrollment file for School Year 2025-2026 lists 231 schools divisions; see DepEd Schools Division Rankings.

Sources

Laws of the Philippine Commission and the Philippine Legislature

• Act No. 74, An Act Establishing a Department of Public Instruction in the Philippine Islands (January 21, 1901), Secs. 1 to 6 and 8 to 16.
• Act No. 82, the Municipal Code (January 31, 1901), Sec. 43.
• Act No. 222 (September 6, 1901), Secs. 1, 4 and 5.
• Act No. 372 (March 7, 1902), Sec. 1.
• Act No. 477 (October 8, 1902), Sec. 2.
• Act No. 1407, the Reorganization Act (October 26, 1905), Sec. 23.
• Philippine Autonomy Act (Jones Law, 1916), Sec. 23.
• Act No. 2666 (November 18, 1916), Secs. 1 and 4.
• Act No. 2706 (March 10, 1917), Secs. 1 and 2.
• Revised Administrative Code of 1917 (Act No. 2711), Secs. 908, 909, 914, 917 and 919 to 921.

Constitutions

• 1935 Constitution, Art. XIV, Sec. 5, as amended.
• 1973 Constitution, Art. XV, Sec. 8.
• 1987 Constitution, Art. XIV, Secs. 2 and 5.

Commonwealth Acts, Republic Acts and Batas Pambansa

• Commonwealth Act No. 180 (November 13, 1936).
• Commonwealth Act No. 586, Educational Act of 1940 (August 7, 1940), Secs. 3 and 7 to 9.
• Republic Act No. 1124 (June 16, 1954), Secs. 1 to 5.
• Republic Act No. 5447 (September 25, 1968), Secs. 1 and 4 to 7.
• Republic Act No. 6054, Barrio High School Charter (August 4, 1969), preamble.
• Batas Pambansa Blg. 232, Education Act of 1982 (September 11, 1982), Secs. 2, 30, 34 to 37, 54 to 56 and 62 to 67.
• Republic Act No. 6655, Free Public Secondary Education Act of 1988 (May 26, 1988), Secs. 3 and 7.
• Republic Act No. 7160, Local Government Code of 1991 (October 10, 1991), Secs. 17, 98, 99, 235, 272 and 536.
• Republic Act No. 7722, Higher Education Act of 1994 (May 18, 1994), Secs. 3 and 18.
• Republic Act No. 7796, TESDA Act of 1994 (August 25, 1994), Sec. 5.
• Republic Act No. 9155, Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 (August 11, 2001), Secs. 2, 5 to 9 and 14.

Presidential decrees and executive issuances

• Executive Order No. 94, s. 1947 (October 4, 1947), Secs. 83 and 84.
• Presidential Decree No. 1 (September 24, 1972).
• Presidential Decree No. 6-A, Educational Development Decree of 1972 (September 29, 1972), Secs. 4 and 6.
• Letter of Implementation No. 22 (December 31, 1972), Secs. 3 and 6.
• Presidential Decree No. 128 (February 13, 1973).
• Presidential Decree No. 1397 (June 2, 1978), Sec. 1.
• Executive Order No. 117, s. 1987 (January 30, 1987), Secs. 4, 10 to 17, 23 and 27.
• Administrative Order No. 15, s. 1987 (February 11, 1987).
• Executive Order No. 189, s. 1987 (June 10, 1987), Secs. 1 and 5.
• Executive Order No. 80, s. 1999 and Executive Order No. 81, s. 1999 (March 5, 1999), Sec. 1.

DepEd

• DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2022, Adoption of the Basic Education Development Plan 2030 (May 30, 2022), enclosure, Secs. 2.2 and 3.4.
• Department of Education, Historical Perspective of the Philippine Educational System.

Reports

• Bureau of Education (1904). Annual Report of the General Superintendent of Education, September 1904. Manila: Bureau of Public Printing, p. 13.
• Sanyal, B. C., and others (1981). Higher Education and the Labour Market in the Philippines. UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, pp. 90 and 91.
• Board of Educational Survey (1925). A Survey of the Educational System of the Philippine Islands. Manila: Bureau of Printing, pp. 62 to 64, 72, 81, 85, 86 and 521 to 524.
• Laguda, R., Aquino, G., Cangayao, L., & Tagle, R. (2025). Realizing Shared Governance: Decentralization of Philippine Basic Education. The Asia Foundation and EDCOM II, Chapter 2 (pp. 16 to 22), and pp. 23 and 41.
• Second Congressional Commission on Education (2026). Turning Point: A Decade of Necessary Reform (2026-2035), EDCOM II Final Report, Figure 16 (pp. 386 and 387) and p. 603.

Written by Mark Anthony Llego for NASH Reviewer. Sources: Act No. 74 and the laws that followed it to Republic Act No. 9155, the 1925 Monroe Survey, the Laguda study for EDCOM II, the EDCOM II Final Report, and DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2022.