The Department of Education (DepEd) is proposing a major restructuring of its field offices to eliminate administrative delays and deliver direct assistance to remote island and mountain schools nationwide.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara announced that the agency plans to establish 13 new Schools Division Offices (SDOs) and deploy 15 field sub-offices, stressing that the restructuring is vital to bring governance closer to isolated schools.
“We can no longer expect a single Schools Division Superintendent in a centralized setup to effectively support and monitor schools located 300 to 600 kilometers away across open seas and mountain ranges,” Angara said.
“The restructuring blueprint gives us an audit-tested basis for decisive action. By creating 13 new division offices and 15 interim sub-offices, we are bringing educational leadership, payroll administration, and instructional support directly to our teachers and school heads.”
The 13 proposed independent SDOs include Palawan North, Palawan South, Cebu North, Cebu South, Iloilo North, Iloilo South, Leyte North, Leyte South-West, Bohol Northeast, Quezon South & Islands, Masbate Islands, CamSur Partido & Coastal, and Cagayan North & Islands.
The proposal follows a comprehensive nationwide audit of all 221 existing SDOs under DepEd’s new SDO Restructuring and Optimization Blueprint.
According to the audit, nine provinces have hit a critical breaking point where centralized governance from a single capital is no longer practical. The heaviest administrative strain is centered in Bohol, Palawan, Masbate, and Quezon, followed by Cebu, Leyte, Camarines Sur, Iloilo, and Cagayan.
Meanwhile, 15 divisions face severe supervisory shortages caused by a combination of high school density and extreme geography.
For decades, SDOs were classified under DepEd Order No. 52, s. 2015 based on headcounts such as the number of teachers, learners and schools. This approach treated flat, contiguous suburban divisions the same as archipelagic territories spread over hundreds of islands and mountain ranges.
As a result, workloads became severely unbalanced. While half of all SDOs handle 76 or fewer schools, 12 overburdened “mega-divisions” shoulder massive operational burdens. For example, SDO Leyte alone oversees 1,286 schools scattered across vast land and sea areas. Nationwide, just 10% of division offices are tasked with supervising over 38% of all basic education institutions.
To fix these disparities, DepEd’s blueprint uses mathematical modeling that factors in physical terrain and travel time alongside school counts, staff size, and supervisory strain.
To implement the blueprint’s classification, DepEd has outlined four executive action tracks based on division size and need.
Track A applies to small and medium SDOs with standard capacity, maintaining their current operations and staffing. Track B expands staffing, leadership roles, and transit support for large SDOs reaching capacity limits. Track C deploys temporary field offices to very large SDOs facing severe bottlenecks ahead of full restructuring. Finally, Track D formally splits overburdened mega-divisions into separate, fully independent SDOs.
Under the plan, parent division offices will keep their current setups while handing over control of specific clusters to newly created divisions.
The 13 proposed independent SDOs include Palawan North, Palawan South, Cebu North, Cebu South, Iloilo North, Iloilo South, Leyte North, Leyte South-West, Bohol Northeast, Quezon South & Islands, Masbate Islands, CamSur Partido & Coastal, and Cagayan North & Islands.
Meanwhile, the 20 existing chartered and component city divisions within these provinces, such as Cebu City, Iloilo City, Puerto Princesa City, and Ormoc City, will remain fully autonomous and unaffected.
To bring the blueprint to life, DepEd is prioritizing key operational steps. The Department will immediately deploy 15 interim field sub-offices in high-friction coastal and island areas including Laoang (Northern Samar), Guiuan (Eastern Samar), Bislig City (Surigao del Sur), and Siasi (Sulu) for urgent supervisory relief and localized services.
DepEd will also work closely with Congress to update Republic Act No. 9155 (Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001) to modernize field office structures. Furthermore, the agency will collaborate with provincial and municipal LGUs to secure land, share facilities, and ensure seamless service across borders. Lastly, DepEd will focus on decentralizing key administrative processes, especially teacher payroll processing, technical support, and instructional coaching, so field personnel see immediate improvements in efficiency.
