All approved printed and electronic textbook titles are now in the process of procurement and national distribution for use in classrooms.
According to the Department of Education in a statement, it has successfully procured 105 textbooks for public elementary and secondary schools for this school year.
The agency noted that the procurement covers learning resources for Grades 1, 4, 7, and Senior High School (SHS) in 2024; followed by Grades 3, 2, 5, and 8 in 2025; and Grades 6, 9, and 10 in 2026—making all phases completed this year.
The move, the Department cited, is in response to the long-standing problems and systemic bottlenecks in procurement as identified by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II).
There, it was mentioned that DepEd only procured 27 of the total 88 required titles from 2014 to 2023—making the current number of titles more than four times than what was purchased within a decade.
“For ten 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,” Education Secretary Sonny Angara said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the bid opening stage for the procurement of K-12 textbooks and teachers’ manuals for the Senior High School (SHS) Core Subjects has been completed.
It is currently undergoing detailed evaluation of the bidding documents, before the formal conclusion of the process and award of the contract.
Once the contract is awarded, production, nationwide delivery, and logistics monitoring will follow, with full distribution expected to be completed by December 2026.
“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 added.
Based on DepEd Order No. 008, series of 2025, strict time limits were placed on the process, mandatory blind content evaluation, and the elimination of repeated review stages.
Under the new rules, the initial technical check is completed in just five days, content evaluation is limited to 90 days, and the price of the book is separated from the scoring for the quality of the materials.
Once a title passes all stages of quality assurance, it goes directly to procurement without further textual changes. This eliminates the lengthy approval process that has led to the absence of the latest books in classrooms.
Under the new governance framework, the responsibilities of each level of the agency are also clear—from monitoring by the Central Office to monitoring the delivery of regional offices, division offices, and principals.
The new process has accelerated due to policy changes—from a 31 percent completion rate in 2014–2023 to 57 percent for the combined years of 2024 and 2025, eventually reaching 100 percent this year.
The education chief also said, “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.”
