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Education in the Philippines

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 will welcome the Philippines as its Guest of Honour.

People like to emphasise how many thousands of islands make up this country with its approximately 115 million inhabitants. In recent years, the Philippines has mainly made headlines because of its president, Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022). "Trump of the Philippines" or the "Philippine populist vulgarian" are just some of the unflattering labels used to describe him in the media.

During his term in office, Duterte openly called for the murder of drug dealers and drug addicts. Thousands of people were simply killed, without any trial or legal basis. Duterte was subsequently arrested in March 2025 on the basis of an international arrest warrant and transferred to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where he will face trial for alleged crimes against humanity. 

Despite all this, Duterte was elected mayor of Davao City, a city with a population of one million, in absentia for the eighth time in May 2025.

This dark chapter in Philippine history is the subject of a new book by Philippine star reporter Patricia Evangelista, entitled ‘Some People Need Killing – A Memoir of Murder in My Country’, which will be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Philippines is currently ruled by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator of the same name. The Marcos and Duterte clans have long dominated the Philippines and repeatedly engage in bitter power struggles, which is why observers describe the country as an oligarchy rather than a democracy.

The Philippines' Guest Country appearance is also being overshadowed by the debate surrounding the Gaza War. Due to the stance of the German Government towards Israel, which many still consider too positive, Publishers for Palestine called for a boycott of the book fair. 

This issue is also being widely discussed in the media and among the public in the Philippines. Some Filipino artists intend to follow this call and actually boycott the Book Fair. Others, however, see the presence in Frankfurt as an important opportunity to articulate the country's long and painful colonial history and the demand for moral clarity and social justice on an international stage.

Education Worldwide offers information on the Philippine education system in this web dossier with regard to the following aspects:

Overview of the education system

Philippines
World Education News & Reviews (WENR) offers comprehensive information on the education system in the Philippines – both in text form and as charts/graphics.
WENR is operated by World Education Services, a non-profit organisation that has been promoting the "educational, economic, and social inclusion of immigrants, [...]

Philippines
The PEER portal is obviously the successor to the earlier Unesco Country Dossiers (see the Internet Archive). In contrast to these, the PEER portal focuses more strongly on the Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM) [...]

Philippines
Nuffic, the Dutch organisation for internationalisation in education, provides information about the education systems of various countries around the world. The aim is to enable comparisons between international and Dutch educational qualifications. Nevertheless, the information is also of interest to international users, as it [...]

Philippines; Germany
The website of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) provides ample information on academic exchange and cooperation with France. Information only available in German. [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Ministries, authorities, education policy

Philippines
Website of the Philippine Department of Education, which is responsible for basic education. This includes primary education, secondary education and non-formal education, including culture and sport. The website offers comprehensive information about the country's education system and education policy. Among other things, it also [...]

Philippines
[Note: The department's website is currently offline, so we link to a copy from the Internet Archive from August 2025.] Website of the Philippine Department of Science and Technology. The site provides information on its work, services provided by the department, programs and projects, as well as various resources such as databases [...]

Philippines
This text provides an overview of two presidential commissions on education in the Philippines:
* Presidential Commission to Survey Philippine Education (PCSPE) – 1969
* Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (PCER) – 1998
The author, Rose Ann Zimara, is an English teacher at Batasan Hills National High [...]

Philippines
The Commission is the highest governing body in the Philippines for higher education institutions and their study programmes. It is responsible for ensuring the quality of higher education institutions and taking appropriate measures to enable access to education for all. The website provides information on publications, official [...]

Philippines
The institution is responsible for providing relevant, high-quality technical education and vocational skills development programmes that meet the needs of the economy and the country's educational goals. It facilitates appropriate policy measures, training programmes and quality standards. The website provides information on [...]

Philippines
"The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) is a national commission tasked [from 2023 to 2025] to undertake a comprehensive national assessment and evaluation of the performance of the Philippine education sector. (...) EDCOM II follows in the footsteps of the First Congressional Commission on Education, [...]

Philippines
The database Planipolis provides official fulltext documents on educational policy and planning from UNESCO member states. For the Philippines you can find documents starting in the year 2003. Planipolis is provided by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Philippines
"The Philippine Qualifications Framework describes the levels of educational qualifications and sets the standards for qualification outcomes." The website offers, among other things, a report designed to ensure comparability and convergence with the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) (ASEAN: Association of Southeast [...]

Philippines
The National Research Council of the Philippines is the principal scientific advisory and consultative body for the Philippine government. Its mission is to promote basic research, maintain ties with local and international scientific organisations, advise on problems and issues of national interest, and promote scientific and [...]

Statistics, Studies, Education Reports

Philippines
For the educational sector, the Philippines Statistical Authority primarily provides information on the "Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), which is conducted approximately every five years. The statistics on the homepage refer only to the literacy rate. For data on education and mass media, please [...]

Philippines
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) offers child-related statistical data for countries around the world. Under the "Education" section, you can find data on school attendance, school completion, and literacy, among other things. [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Philippines
The World Bank provides the following data in its education statistics:
* Gross [School] Enrollment
* [School] Completion
* Education Indicators
* Learning Outcomes (with data from PISA and TIMSS)
* Expenditures
* Policy
* World Bank Education Projects
* Socio-Economic Context
[Summary: [...]

Philippines
The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) provides higher education statistics from 2017 onwards. The commission is the Philippines' highest governing body for higher education institutions and their degree programs. [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Philippines
Unfortunately, there is no OECD website that lists all of a country's PISA results. Therefore, we have compiled the links scattered across various pages here:
* PISA 2022 Results [...]

Philippines; South-East Asia
"The Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) is a regional learning assessment and capacity building programme designed by and for Southeast Asian countries to improve relevant and equitable learning outcomes for students in basic education." This assessment was created by SEAMEO (Organization of [...]

Associations, Networks & Professional Societies

South-East Asia; Brunei Darussalam; Cambodia; Indonesia; Laos; Malaysia; Philippines; Singapore; Thailand; Myanmar [...]
The Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) was established in November 1965 as a chartered international organization whose purpose is to promote cooperation in education, science and culture in the [...]

Philippines
The Philippine Association of Authors, Researchers, and Educators does not have its own website other than its Facebook account. This account announces conferences, webinars, publications, and more. To see more than the first two or three posts, you must have a Facebook account. [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Philippines
PAFTE was founded in 1968 as the "Philippine Association for Teacher Education" before later being renamed the "Philippine Association for Teachers and Educators." PAFTE describes itself as having been "always supportive of government goals" and thus, among other things, "was consulted by the Educational Commission (EDCOM) on [...]

Philippines
"The Philippine Public School Teachers Association(PPSTA) is the biggest and foremost professional association of public school teachers in the country with a stronghold of more than 200,000 teacher-members all over the archipelago. The members include administrators, supervisors, classroom teachers, non-teaching support personnel, [...]

Philippines
"The Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) is the oldest private higher education association in the country. It was established in 1932 to set higher standards for private educational institutions and to promote the interests of private education in the country. It was named the Association of Filipino Private [...]

Philippines
Unfortunately, the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines (COCOPEA) only has a Facebook account as its web presence. Current news about events and similar topics are posted there. To see more than the first 2-3 posts, you need to have a Facebook account. The website of PACU (Philippine [...]

Philippines
The Philippine Research Association for Early Childhood Education (PRAECE) is part of the Pacific Research Association for Early Childhood Education (PECERA). One of its main focuses is the transfer of research into practice. Its website primarily provides information about events and conferences. [Abstract: Editors of Education [...]

Philippines
"The Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) is a private, voluntary, non-profit, and non-stock corporation that was [created in] 1957. PAASCU is a service organization that accredits, or quality assures academic programs of its member schools and does institutional accreditation." The [...]

Professional Journals in the Field of Education

Philippines
The Philippine E-Journals platform is provided by C&E Publishing, Inc., which claims to be a leading educational publisher in the Philippines. Here we link to available journals on the subject of education. [Abstract: Editors of Education Worldwide]

Philippines
"The NRCP Research Journal is the official journal of the National Research Council of the Philippines. All articles published in this journal are refereed and evaluated by the Editorial Board and external referees on over-all quality and correctness, originality, clarity of presentation and contribution to scientific knowledge. [...]

Philippines
"The Philippine Journal of Educational Studies (PJES) is published by the University of the Philippines (UP), College of Education. It is a double-blind, peer-reviewed journal interested in providing relevant and novel insights on education systems, learners, teachers, and related disciplines to an international audience. PJES is [...]

Philippines
"The Philippine Education Research Journal (PERJ) is an online, peer‐reviewed, open access journal that is the official research publication of the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC). Published twice a year, it serves as a platform for the dissemination of research of interest to decision makers, policy makers, and [...]

Philippines
The journal is available on the Philippine E-Journals platform, but unfortunately does not appear in the list of journals in the field of education. Therefore, it is linked separately here.

The Philippine E-Journals platform is operated by C&E Publishing, Inc., which claims to be a leading educational publisher in the [...]