In a historic milestone, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced on Wednesday that it has successfully procured all 105 planned textbook titles for the basic education sector.
This accomplishment directly resolves a longstanding issue flagged by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II), which highlighted that a mere 27 out of 88 required titles were secured between 2014 and 2023 because of persistent operational bottlenecks.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara credited the milestone to enhanced transparency, rigorous quality checks, and strict enforcement of operational schedules.
“When 27 titles in a decade is your baseline, delivering 105 titles in a single year isn’t just an administrative achievement; it is a fundamental restoration of service to our learners,” Angara noted.
“We dismantled unnecessary bottlenecks, strictly enforced timeline discipline, and proved that transparency, speed, and quality control can go hand-in-hand to ensure our schools receive complete, high-quality learning resources without delay.”
Angara emphasized that strategic policy overhauls drove the 100-percent completion rate, representing a dramatic leap from the 57% combined rate in 2024 and 2025, and the dismal 31% recorded over the previous decade.
“For 10 years, our public school system was trapped in a cycle where procuring a single textbook title took up to three years, leaving millions of learners and teachers without the fundamental tools they needed,” he added.
Under the updated guidelines, technical validation is capped at five days, while content evaluations must wrap up within 90 calendar days. To streamline the pipeline, financial reviews are now decoupled from quality assessments, allowing vetted materials to move directly to procurement without further editing rounds.
With the acquisition phase finished, all 105 approved titles will be distributed nationwide in physical and digital formats. The learning materials fully support the phased curriculum rollout, which began with Grades 1, 4, 7, and Senior High School in 2024, expanded through 2025, and reached full implementation across Grades 6, 9, and 10 this year.