EDUCATION Secretary Sonny Angara yesterday touted the progress in the basic education sector, including reducing the textbook procurement timeline and providing greater support to teachers and learners, as he marked his first year as DepEd chief.
Angara succeeded Vice President Sara Duterte as Education Secretary after her resignation from the Marcos Cabinet.
“I have been serving in the Department of Education for one year now. Under the Marcos administration, we have been addressing the challenges in the education sector,” Angara said in a Facebook post.
Angara listed the achievements of DepEd under his watch so far, including reducing from 451 to 60 days the timeline for the procurement of textbooks, establishing a supplier’s digital registry to enhance transparency and participation, and the launch next month of an open data platform to allow greater public access to DepEd data and information.
“Seventy-five percent of textbook titles have been procured since July 2022,” he said.
Angara said that 97 percent of 22,000 newly created teacher positions and 99 percent of 5,000 administrative posts were filled in 2024, while 2,100 school heads were promoted toward the goal of “one school, one principal” policy.
He added that in just eight months, the department has slashed unfilled teaching posts from 72,964 in August 2024 to 38,862 by April 2025.
Teaching supplies allowance was also increased to P10,000 per year from P5,000, while teacher salary subsidy for private school teachers was also increased to P24,000 from P18,000.
Angara said 90,000 learners also saw an improved performance through DepEd’s summer learning and reading programs.
On the other hand, 170,909 learners have also benefited from free technical vocational certification in partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
Meanwhile, 891 schools are piloting a strengthened senior high school curriculum, while 328 low-income barangays will each receive funding for Child Development Centers.
“Starting this school year, all schools will implement universal feeding for kindergarten learners,” Angara said.
Under the learning recovery program to recover lost ground due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Angara said the Literacy Remediation Program saw an increased performance among learners, wherein the number of low-emerging readers in Grade 3 nationwide decreased by as much as 96.37 percent.
DepEd data showed that as of July 8, 2025, 51,537 learners were assessed out of the target of 59,617.
To address the perennial problem of classroom shortage, Angara said DepEd is “pursuing the construction of 105,000 classrooms through Public-Private Partnership (PPP).
The PPP was started by the administration of then-President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III for its various infrastructure projects, including school buildings.
“Disaster-ready modular classrooms are being developed and will be ready for deployment,” Angara added.
Last month, Angara said the department worked with the private sector to build 15,000 new classrooms by 2027 to ease the congestion in public schools.
Earlier, Angara said the classroom shortage in public schools stood at 165,000 and may take several decades to resolve if the current pace of construction is not addressed.
He said the DepEd is also pursuing the PSIP Connect project to deliver digital devices, solar power, and Internet to hard-to-reach schools, including the Last Mile Schools (LMS).
Last Mile schools are defined by DepEd as those without complete sets of school furniture, no computers, no Internet connection, very few textbooks and manuals, and lacking laboratory tools, and are usually located in geographically isolated, disadvantaged, and conflict-affected areas.
These schools typically have a student population of less than 100 learners.
As of last year, the DepEd has identified over 7,000 schools that fit the definition of a Last Mile school across the country.
Despite these achievements, Angara acknowledged that there is more work to be done to fully address the problems in the basic education sector.
“There are still many things to fix, but with the help of our teachers, parents and learners, we will continue with our work for a New Philippines,” he said.
