The educational structure in the Philippines includes Elementary School, grades 1-6 (age 6-11), and High School, grades 7-10 (age 12-15.)  The school year in the Philippines starts in June of one year
and ends in March of the next, with a two-month summer break for April and May, one week of semestral break (the last week of October), and a week or two of Christmas break. 

76% enroll in Elementary school, 59% in High School. On the elementary and high school levels, public schools predominate, but at college and graduate school levels, there are more private than public institutions. This is also true for specialty and vocational schools. 80% of High Schools students go to public schools.  Due to costs, private school attendance has dropped from 62% to 21% since 1965.

Public elementary and high schools are tuition free but there are expenses for materials, projects, uniforms and transportation which have to be borne by the parents. Because public schools are cheap, they lack basic equipment and instructional materials. While basic education is free, many poor families are unable to finance the transportation, books, supplies, canteen, uniforms of their children,
$10-$40 per year, depending on location.  For that reason, schools were recently directed to not require uniforms of students, and provide food for qualifying students.

Classes are very large. The Public schools have Asia’s highest student to teacher ratio. The elementary school ratio is 1 to 51, high school is 1 to 102. The education system is marked by inadequate teacher training programs and declining per capita expenditure per child by
the government. Manila area schools are better equipped than are rural area schools.

At Commonwealth Elementary School in the Philippines, in Quezon City, some 11,900 students in 2006 alone. Teachers struggle to even house the students, cramming them into every available space, including corridors, bathrooms and garages. Rooms are filled to bursting, with some classes having more than 70 students. In some cases, three kids share a single desk. Five pupils share a single textbook. Most of the children come from the nearby slum where thousands of informal
settlers crowd into small shanties made of scrap wood and iron sheets.

To further accommodate more students, the school operates on two shifts: grades two, four and six are in the morning classes from 6am to noon and grades one, three and five are in the afternoon classes from 12.30pm to 6pm. This forces seven-year-olds to wake up before dawn to catch their early morning class. The children's busy parents give them too little support in their schooling. Some don't get enough allowance. Some can't get help with homework. Some children aren't even bathed. The teaching staff has fallen to 230 from last year's 252.

The Philippines provides virtually free education for the first six years, but the standards in government-run schools are usually much lower than those in expensive private schools. Only the poorest send their kids to state-run schools.

Private elementary and high schools are often much better equipped but also are much more expensive as is the case in most countries. Most private elementary and high schools cost between 2,000 ($43) and 5,000 ($108) pesos per year for tuition and fees. The most exclusive can
cost as much as 60,000 pesos ($1300) per year. School hours often fill the whole day, ranging from 7:00 to 17:00. And still there is homework. On weekends, military training may be required. From high school on, many institutions offer night classes from roughly 17:30 until about 21:30, but usually only in Manila or larger provincial cities. In night classes, high school, college, and university courses
can be completed by extending years of schooling. Summer school sessions are available for remedial high school students and for special courses, e.g. computer studies, from April through May.

Secondary education in the Philippines is largely based on the American schooling system. DepEd specifies a compulsory curriculum for all high schooling, public and private. As of 2006, only private
schools have entrance examinations for Secondary school.