TL;DR: MELCs are the Most Essential Learning Competencies, a filtered subset of the K to 12 curriculum's competencies adopted through DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2020, the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan, on 19 June 2020. Reported figures put the streamlined set at 5,689 competencies down from 14,171, roughly a 60 per cent cut. Two things about them are widely misunderstood. First, MELCs are not a curriculum; they are a priority list drawn out of the existing curriculum guides. Second, they were an emergency measure framed for SY 2020-2021, not a permanent structure, and they only lasted six years because nothing replaced them. The MATATAG Curriculum guides are now displacing them for Kindergarten to Grade 10, and the Strengthened SHS Curriculum has taken over Grade 11 from SY 2026-2027.
Search "MELCs DepEd" and you get download links, spreadsheets and lesson-planning templates, most of them undated. What you rarely get is a straight answer to the two questions teachers and education students actually need settled: what a MELC is as a piece of curriculum architecture, and whether it still governs the class in front of you. This guide answers both from the issuances themselves, and is honest about where the answer depends on your grade level. For the wider curriculum picture, see our K to 12 curriculum guide and our explainer on what a curriculum actually is.
What Are MELCs, Exactly?
A MELC is a learning competency that DepEd identified as essential and, in many cases, rephrased or merged from the competencies already written into the K to 12 curriculum guides. The set is a priority filter over an existing curriculum, not a curriculum in its own right.
That distinction matters in practice. The curriculum guide for a learning area sets the content standards, performance standards and the full competency list for a grade level. The MELC list says: of those, teach these. Everything a MELC list does not name still belongs to the curriculum; it was deprioritised, not deleted. DepEd's framing at the time was that other competencies were subsumed within the essential ones rather than dropped, which is why a MELC often reads like a broader restatement of two or three original competencies.
| K to 12 curriculum guide | MELC list | |
|---|---|---|
| What it sets | Content and performance standards, full competency list, learning area structure | A prioritised subset of competencies |
| Issued under | DO 021, s. 2019 (Policy Guidelines on the K to 12 Basic Education Program) | DO 012, s. 2020 (Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan) |
| Purpose | Defines the subject | Defines what to cover first under constrained time |
| Replaces | The pre-K-12 curriculum | Nothing; it sits on top of the curriculum guide |
Which Issuance Created the MELCs?
DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2020, "Adoption of the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan for School Year 2020-2021 in Light of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency," issued 19 June 2020. Streamlining the K to 12 curriculum into the Most Essential Learning Competencies is one of the two core learning strategies the plan operationalises, alongside multiple learning delivery modalities such as modular and blended learning.
DepEd Memorandum No. 089, s. 2020 followed with clarifications on the use of the MELCs and related issues, which is the document divisions cite when teachers ask whether a non-MELC competency can still be taught. Schools were instructed to refer to the MELCs when producing learning activity sheets, self-learning modules and other instructional materials, which is why the MELC list became the de facto spine of every module produced in that period.
Disclaimer: divisions and regions issued their own supplementary memoranda on MELC use, audits and unpacking. Practice varied, and your division's guidance is the operative document for anything the national issuances leave open.
How Many MELCs Are There?
The figure quoted almost everywhere is 5,689 MELCs, streamlined from 14,171 competencies, a reduction of about 60 per cent. Two cautions are worth attaching to it.
These counts come from DepEd statements reported in national media in 2020, not from a published competency-by-competency tally in the order. And the totals are for the whole K to 12 span; the reduction was not uniform, so a given learning area and grade level may have been cut much more or much less than 60 per cent. If you need the count for one subject and grade, count the entries in that subject's MELC list rather than applying the headline percentage.
Were MELCs Meant to Be Permanent?
No. The Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan presented the streamlining as an emergency response, adopted so that instruction under distance and blended delivery could focus on essentials and so that classroom-based learning resources could be adapted for distance learning. The MELCs were framed for nationwide use by field implementers in school year 2020-2021.
They stayed in use for roughly six school years, through the return to in-person classes and beyond. Not because DepEd extended them as policy each year, but because there was no replacement competency list for most grade levels until the MATATAG curriculum guides began arriving in 2024. This is the single most useful thing to understand about the MELCs: their long life is a gap-filling story, not a policy endorsement.
Are MELCs Still in Force Today?
Only in the shrinking space the two current curriculum reforms have not yet reached.
DepEd Order No. 010, s. 2024 established the MATATAG Curriculum for Kindergarten to Grade 10. DepEd's own published FAQ on that order answers the question directly: for grade levels not yet covered by the MATATAG rollout, schools follow the learning areas in the MELCs-based curriculum, while adopting the time allotments specified in the MATATAG Curriculum. That is an unusual hybrid, and it is exactly the kind of detail that gets lost in secondhand summaries: old competency list, new clock.
The same FAQ states that the MATATAG Curriculum is applicable only from Kindergarten to Grade 10, that it started in SY 2024-2025 with Kindergarten and Grades 1, 4 and 7, and that its full implementation is in SY 2026-2027 with a separate order planned for Grades 11 and 12. It also stated at the time that for Senior High School, DO 021, s. 2019 on the SHS curriculum and DO 012, s. 2020 on the SHS MELCs remain in effect.
That last point has since moved. DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026, the Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum, expressly amends DO 021, s. 2019 as to Annex 2 on Secondary Education, and applies to all public and private Senior High Schools from SY 2026-2027. Grade 11 is therefore no longer working from the SHS MELCs. Grade 12 in SY 2026-2027 is the exception: DepEd Order No. 015, s. 2026 confirms that Grade 12 has not yet implemented the Strengthened SHS Curriculum for that school year.
Disclaimer: some later summaries put the final MATATAG grade level a year beyond DepEd's own FAQ answer. Ask your school which curriculum a specific grade level is running this year rather than inferring it from a rollout table.
What Replaced the MELCs?
Grade level by grade level, the MATATAG curriculum guides. Each learning area now has its own MATATAG curriculum guide with its own competency list, and once a grade level is on that guide, the MELC list for that grade stops being the working document. Our DepEd curriculum guides hub covers the guides by learning area.
The class-programme side changed too. DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2024 amended the MATATAG order to give schools flexibility in daily time allotments, offering options such as 45 minutes a day per learning area across five days, or uniform allotments of 50, 55 or 60 minutes with prescribed weekly frequencies, subject to minimum weekly minutes per subject group and approval by the schools division superintendent where a school proposes its own combination. That amendment is the reason two neighbouring schools can be on the same curriculum with visibly different timetables.
For Senior High School, the Strengthened SHS Curriculum replaces the old four-track, named-strand structure with two tracks and elective clusters, and DO 017, s. 2026 also amends DO 030, s. 2017 on work immersion.
Should Teachers Still Use MELC-Based Materials?
It depends on the grade you teach, and the honest answer is that many schools are running mixed shelves right now.
- If your grade level is on a MATATAG curriculum guide, plan from that guide. A MELC-based module may still be a usable resource, but the competency it targets has to be checked against the current guide, not assumed.
- If your grade level is not yet on MATATAG, DepEd's FAQ puts you on the MELCs-based curriculum with MATATAG time allotments, so the MELC list is still your competency reference while your timetable is not.
- If you teach Senior High School, check whether your learners are Grade 11 under the Strengthened SHS Curriculum or Grade 12 under the outgoing one, because they are not on the same document.
- Treat undated MELC downloads with suspicion. A large share of the material circulating carries no issuance reference and no grade-level scope, which is precisely what makes it hard to tell whether it is current for your class.
- Check your division's memoranda. Unpacking, auditing and material-review practices around MELCs varied significantly by division, and that variation has carried into the transition.
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Sources
- DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2020 — Adoption of the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan for SY 2020-2021 (official)
- DepEd — Frequently Asked Questions on the Policy Guidelines on the Implementation of the MATATAG Curriculum (official PDF)
- DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026 — Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum (official)
- DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2024 — Amendment to DepEd Order No. 010, s. 2024 (official PDF)
- Inquirer — DepEd: Guidelines for streamlined K to 12 curriculum now available online (source of the 5,689 and 14,171 figures)
- The amendment and scope clauses cited above were read from the published PDFs of DO 017, s. 2026 and DO 012, s. 2024 on deped.gov.ph.
- SchoolFinderPH — MATATAG Curriculum Guide
- SchoolFinderPH — DepEd Curriculum Guides Hub
