TL;DR: DepEd non-teaching personnel wear Designs D, E and F under DepEd Memorandum No. 028, s. 2025: Design D on Monday, Design E on Tuesday and Thursday, Design F on Wednesday, and appropriate office clothes on Friday. Classroom-based staff follow the same pattern under Designs A, B and C. SY 2025-2026 was the transition year; from SY 2026-2027 the new sets are mandatory, which is the school year now running. Two things decide most non-teaching questions: who is classified as office-based, which DM 028 leaves to your Personnel Unit for the roles that sit between a school and an office, and the seven grounds for exemption, none of them automatic and all of them requiring a written request 15 days in advance. The memorandum also abolishes separate regional and division office uniforms. Fabric rules, supplier rules and the ₱7,000 clothing allowance are the same for both groups and are covered in our DepEd uniform schedule guide.
Most guidance on DepEd uniforms is written for teachers, and non-teaching staff end up reading around it and guessing which parts apply. This guide is about the office-based side specifically: the Designs D, E and F set, who is actually classified as office-based, and the exemption grounds, which is where most non-teaching questions land. The rules that are identical for both groups live in the companion guide rather than being repeated here. For the classroom-based schedule, the full weekly table covering both groups, and the fabric, supplier and clothing-allowance rules in full, see our DepEd uniform schedule guide; for the allowance mechanics on their own, see our guide to the teacher clothing allowance, which covers the same allowance non-teaching personnel receive.
What Is the Office-Based Uniform Schedule?
DepEd Memorandum No. 028, s. 2025, "Guidelines on the New Department of Education National Uniform for Classroom and Office-Based Personnel," dated 24 March 2025, sets three design sets for office-based personnel and a fixed weekly rotation.
| Day | Office-based personnel |
|---|---|
| Monday | Designs D for male and female (ASEAN- and Filipiniana-inspired) |
| Tuesday | Designs E for male and female |
| Wednesday | Designs F for male and female |
| Thursday | Designs E for male and female |
| Friday | Appropriate office clothes |
Design D is the ceremonial-leaning set: the memorandum tags only the Monday designs as ASEAN- and Filipiniana-inspired, for both the classroom-based and office-based groups. Design E carries two days, so in practice most personnel need more than one of it.
Friday is deliberately unspecified nationally. "Appropriate office clothes" is not defined further in DM 028, which is exactly the gap that school heads, division chiefs and Personnel Units fill with their own guidance. If your office has a Friday convention, that convention comes from your office, not from the national memorandum.
Disclaimer: divisions and offices issue supplementary guidance on the details the national memorandum leaves open. Confirm anything about Friday attire, sports-fest days or heat-index exceptions with your own Personnel Unit rather than assuming a national default exists.
Who Counts as Non-Teaching or Office-Based?
DM 028 splits personnel by where the work is done rather than by appointment title, and the memorandum's own addressee list runs from Undersecretaries and Bureau and Service Directors through Regional Directors, Schools Division Superintendents, school heads and Division Chiefs.
In practice, the office-based group covers administrative and support personnel at the Central Office, regional offices and Schools Division Offices, plus the non-teaching staff assigned to schools: administrative officers and assistants, registrars, property and supply custodians, bookkeepers, and Project Development Officers. The Department of Budget and Management has been approving batches of these positions specifically to relieve teachers of administrative work, with Administrative Officer II posts at Salary Grade 11 and Project Development Officer I posts distributed to elementary, junior high and senior high schools. Our salary grade table guide covers where those positions sit on the pay scale.
The edge cases are where offices differ. A teacher on detail to a division office, a guidance designate who spends most of the week in an office, a school nurse, a security guard, a utility worker: whether they are classroom-based or office-based for uniform purposes is a call the Personnel Unit makes, and DM 028 does not decide it for them. Ask rather than assume, especially before buying three design sets.
What Changed From the Old Uniform Rules?
Two changes matter most to division and office staff, and the first has the most practical bite.
Separate office uniforms are gone. DM 028 states that only the approved national uniforms shall be used by all DepEd personnel and that, to maintain uniformity across all offices and schools, there shall be no regional office and schools division office uniforms. Offices that had built their own identity around a distinct uniform lost that under this memorandum.
The designs came out of a joint committee. The Executive Committee set the guidelines on the recommendation of the DepEd Uniform Committee, which DM 028 describes as composed of teaching and non-teaching employee organisations, reconstituted under DepEd Memorandum No. 027, s. 2024. That composition is the reason office-based personnel had a seat in choosing the office-based designs rather than inheriting whatever was chosen for teachers.
Fabric, Alterations and Suppliers: the Rules That Apply to Everyone
These three rule sets are identical for classroom-based and office-based personnel, so this guide summarises them and our DepEd uniform schedule guide carries the full treatment with the source wording.
- No fabric is prescribed, in recognition of varying geographical and climate conditions, provided the design and colour comply with the guidelines and with Republic Act No. 9242, the Philippine Tropical Fabrics Law. One material is expressly ruled out: sublimation-printed uniforms are prohibited under a later DepEd memorandum, DM-OUHRODI-2026-0693, so a cheaper sublimated set bought for an office is non-compliant rather than a saving.
- Alterations are allowed only for inclusivity, in alignment with CSC Memorandum Circular No. 16, s. 2024, limited to changes such as altering short sleeves to long sleeves for religious reasons, with the overall design and colour unchanged.
- You may buy from any compliant source. DepEd has authorised no exclusive distributor, unions and cooperatives may offer materials to members as an option rather than a channel anyone can be pushed into, and anyone compelling or coercing personnel to buy from a specific supplier is to be reported in writing to the Central Office.
Separately, DM 028 requires all DepEd personnel to wear their prescribed identification cards at all times while on official duty or when representing the Department outside schools and offices, citing Republic Act No. 11032, the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018. For office-based staff who receive the public at a Schools Division Office front desk, that is the provision most likely to be checked.
Who Is Exempt, and How Do You Ask?
DM 028 lists seven grounds for exemption from wearing the prescribed uniform.
| Ground | Covers |
|---|---|
| Nature of work | Medical and health personnel, laboratory personnel, technicians and engineers, and those performing fieldwork |
| Religion | Where religious affiliation, creed or a legitimate related practice requires particular clothing |
| Health | Physical disabilities and other legitimate health reasons |
| Pregnancy | Female personnel during the period of pregnancy |
| Mourning | Personnel mourning the death of a family member |
| Emergency | Emergency cases, rehabilitation after a severe calamity or disaster, and inclement weather |
| Analogous | Other circumstances analogous to the foregoing |
The procedure is the same for all of them. A written request goes to the Head of Office through the Personnel Unit, at least 15 days in advance for approval. If approved, the memorandum provides that the personnel reports to work in the approved requested clothing or at least in smart casual attire.
The first ground is the one that most directly affects non-teaching staff, since it names several roles that are almost entirely non-teaching. It is not automatic, though. The memorandum sets out a request procedure and does not say that anyone in those roles is exempt without applying.
Disclaimer: exemption approval sits with your Head of Office. Nothing here substitutes for filing the written request through your Personnel Unit within the 15-day lead time.
How Is the Uniform Funded?
By the annual uniform and clothing allowance of ₱7,000, released not earlier than the first working day of April, which is the same allowance and the same amount for teaching and non-teaching personnel alike. The release mechanics and the full eligibility rules are in our DepEd uniform schedule guide and our teacher clothing allowance guide; DepEd teacher benefits covers the other allowances that sit alongside it.
One point in those rules lands harder on the non-teaching side. Eligibility follows the government-wide rule, and personnel engaged through job order or contract of service arrangements have no employer-employee relationship with the agency, so they are outside the allowance entirely. That group is a meaningful share of the people working in DepEd offices and schools, often in exactly the front-desk and support roles the office-based designs were drawn for, and the uniform framework was not built with them in mind. If you are on a job order contract, confirm with your Personnel Unit what is actually expected of you before spending your own money on three design sets.
What Should Non-Teaching Staff Do This Year?
- Confirm your classification in writing if your role sits between a school and an office. Designs A to C and D to F are not interchangeable, and a wrong guess is three sets of clothing.
- Buy for the rotation, not for one day. Design E covers Tuesday and Thursday, so plan the wardrobe around the actual weekly cycle.
- File any exemption request early. The 15-day lead time is in the memorandum, and a request submitted the week you need it will not have been approved.
- Report supplier pressure rather than absorbing it. The memorandum names both the reporting route and the office to address it to.
- Check your division's own memo for the Friday rule, which is the one day the national memorandum leaves entirely to local judgment.
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Sources
- DepEd — DM 028, s. 2025: Guidelines on the New Department of Education National Uniform for Classroom and Office-Based Personnel (official)
- Schedule, exemption grounds, supplier rules and the allowance provision above were read from the full text of DM 028, s. 2025 as reproduced in the Schools Division Office of Muntinlupa City's dissemination memorandum, NUM-2025-156.
- DepEd — DO 7, s. 2013: Prescribing the DepEd National Uniforms for Teachers and Non-Teaching Personnel (official, the earlier framework)
- DepEd SDO Tacurong City — Dissemination of DepEd Memorandum DM-OUHRODI-2026-0693, Reiteration on the Strict Wearing of the Prescribed DepEd National Uniform for SY 2026-2027 (PDF, includes the full national memorandum with the sublimation prohibition)
- Department of Budget and Management — DBM approves the creation of 5,000 DepEd non-teaching positions nationwide
- SchoolFinderPH — DepEd Uniform Schedule and Dress Code
- SchoolFinderPH — Teacher Clothing Allowance
