TL;DR: Two things are worth knowing before you compare Davao private schools on price. A fee increase is not a school's unilateral decision — under the 2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education, no increase is approved unless 70% of it goes to staff pay, with return on investment capped at 12% of the incremental proceeds, and schools must consult the PTA and faculty association first. And the calendar has moved: DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026 opens SY 2026-2027 on Monday 8 June 2026 and ends it on Thursday 8 April 2027, over 201 class days in three terms.
The school year you are budgeting against
DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026 sets the three-term school calendar for basic education. Under it:
- SY 2026-2027 formally opens Monday, 8 June 2026 and ends Thursday, 8 April 2027.
- It consists of 201 class days, from the first day of Term 1 to the last day of Term 3.
- The year runs on a three-term structure, with each term ending in a two-week End-of-Term Block.
The statutory frame is RA 7797 as amended by RA 11480: the school year shall consist of not more than 220 class days and shall start not earlier than the first Monday of June and not later than the last day of August.
DO 009 expressly repeals DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2025 in its entirety and amends the transfer and enrolment provisions in DO 017, s. 2025.
The 201 days for SY 2026-2027 break down as Term 1 at 69 days, Term 2 at 65 and Term 3 at 67, and DO 009 provides that each term shall consist of 65 to 69 days of engaged teaching and learning excluding weekends and legal holidays.
Each term is made up of an Instructional Block — protected teaching time — and a two-week End-of-Term Block at its close. Term 1 also opens with an Opening Block. The End-of-Term Block is defined in the order as the period allocated to grade computation, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities and competitions at school, division and regional levels, implementation of the ARAL Program, professional development, and wellness breaks for teachers and learners. The term examination is the summative assessment administered during the last week of each Instructional Block.
Why this belongs in a cost guide. Payment schedules track the calendar. A ten-month instalment plan on an August start is a different cash-flow problem from one on a June start, and a three-term structure can mean three billing points rather than two semestral ones. The End-of-Term Blocks are also when competitions and activities cluster, which is when the ad hoc costs — contributions, uniforms for events, travel to division and regional levels — tend to arrive. Ask the school which structure its payment plan follows, and what a typical End-of-Term Block costs a family.
Note also that international schools in Davao are not obliged to follow the DepEd calendar and generally do not.
What DepEd assistance is available in total
Section 4 of RA 6728 sets out the forms of assistance, and it is broader than most parents realise. Beyond ESC and the tuition voucher, the Act established a High School Textbook Assistance Fund under Section 6, giving per-student assistance to private schools charging below a threshold amount, exclusively for the purchase of high school textbooks from the DepEd-approved list.
For tertiary study the same Act created the Private Education Student Financial Assistance programme under Section 8, covering degree and vocational or technical courses, granted to deserving underprivileged students selected on family income, geographic spread and competitive examination results, and allocated across provinces and cities according to regional and national plans and priority courses. Section 9 provides tuition fee supplements for non-freshmen students in private colleges and universities in priority course programmes.
None of these is automatic. Each runs through an application with a deadline, and the school is usually the channel. Ask early, not at enrolment.
How a private school's fees are actually set
This is the part most parents never see, and it changes what questions you can usefully ask.
Private basic education schools operate under the 2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education, issued as DepEd Order No. 88, s. 2010 and subsequently amended, including by DepEd Order No. 11, s. 2011.
A school cannot simply set a new rate. A private school that wants to revise its rates of tuition and other school fees or charges, or to impose new fees, must file an application for approval.
The 70/12 rule. No increase in tuition or other school fees is approved unless 70% of the tuition fee increase is allocated to the payment of salaries, wages, allowances and other benefits of the faculty and all other employees of the school, with the balance going to institutional development, student assistance and extension services, and return on investment — and in no case may the return on investment exceed 12% of the incremental proceeds.
Consultation is required. Schools must conduct appropriate consultations on any proposed increase, and on new charges, with the duly organised Parents-Teachers Association and the faculty association.
Documentation goes to the division office. The application package includes an itemised statement of current rates, the proposed changes and any new charges, the allocation of the incremental proceeds, a financial statement and the latest income tax return, filed with the concerned Schools Division Office within the annual filing period.
What to do with this. When a Davao school announces an increase, you are entitled to ask three concrete questions: whether the PTA consultation happened and when, what the approved schedule of fees is, and how the increase is allocated. A school that can answer all three is operating normally. One that cannot is worth a second look.
Government assistance that reduces the bill
RA 6728, the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Act, is the statute behind the two schemes most Davao families encounter.
Educational Service Contracting. Under Section 7, DepEd contracts with private schools so that government shoulders the tuition and other fees of students who would otherwise be excess enrolment in public high schools. For a family, this is the difference between a private school being out of reach and being affordable.
The voucher system. Section 5 provides for financial assistance for tuition for students in private high schools through a voucher system. This is the ancestor of the senior high school voucher programme that now covers Grades 11 and 12.
Section 3 sets the criteria on which assistance is based: tuition fees charged by the schools, the socio-economic needs of each region, overall school performance, the academic qualifications and financial needs of students, and the geographic spread and size of the student population.
The practical step is to ask each Davao school you are considering whether it participates in ESC and in the senior high voucher programme, how many slots it holds, and what the application timeline is. Participation is a school-by-school fact, not a sector-wide one.
For detail, see our guides to the ESC grant for private schools and the senior high school voucher programme.
Davao's private school landscape
Davao City has a broad private sector, and it is worth understanding the categories before you compare prices, because they are not competing on the same thing.
- Catholic and other religious schools run by congregations, combining academic work with formation. In Davao these include Ateneo de Davao University, Holy Cross of Davao College and Assumption College of Davao.
- Protestant and Christian schools, such as Davao Christian High School.
- Non-sectarian private schools with their own pedagogical approach, such as Philippine Women's College of Davao, which is co-educational despite the name.
- Chinese-Filipino schools serving Davao's Chinese-Filipino community, typically adding Mandarin instruction to the DepEd curriculum.
- International schools following a foreign or international curriculum, generally outside the DepEd calendar and outside the DepEd fee-approval framework where they are not DepEd-regulated basic education providers.
Schools in nearby cities are also in play for some families — Cor Jesu College in Digos, for instance.
We are not attaching peso figures to any of these. Their published schedules of fees change annually under the process described above, and a figure in a guide is out of date the moment it is approved.
Getting a real number out of a school
Ask for these, in writing, and you will have a comparable figure rather than an impression.
1. The full approved schedule of fees for the level your child is entering. Not "tuition is around X". The schedule, with the DepEd approval reference.
2. The breakdown into tuition, miscellaneous fees and other fees. The second and third categories are often a large share of the total and are where schools differ most.
3. Every one-time charge. Entrance or assessment fee, registration, ID and records, and whether any of these recur annually.
4. The payment plans and what each actually costs. Ask for the total under annual, semestral, quarterly and monthly plans. Discounts for full payment and surcharges on instalments are both common, and the difference between the best and worst plan on the same fees can be material.
5. Discounts you may already qualify for. Sibling discounts, early enrolment discounts, and staff or alumni discounts.
6. What is billed separately during the year. Books and supplies, uniforms and PE uniform, field trips, retreats and recollections, graduation or moving-up fees, club dues, device or computer fees, and event contributions. Ask for last year's actual total for a child at that level, which is a far better estimate than a list of possibilities.
7. Whether the school participates in ESC or the senior high voucher programme, and the deadline to apply.
8. Your own costs, which the school will not quote. School van or transport, and daily baon. These depend on where you live in Davao and on your child, so price them yourself against the school's location and hours.
Choosing well, beyond the price
- Match the school to the child. A highly structured school and a child who needs room are a bad fit at any price. Visit and watch a class rather than a presentation.
- Ask how the school is implementing the Strengthened Senior High curriculum if senior high is in view. DO 017, s. 2026 replaced strands with elective clusters across two tracks, and schools differ in which electives they can actually offer. Ask which clusters and electives the school runs, not which strands it used to have.
- Ask about the three-term calendar concretely. How are the End-of-Term Blocks used, how does grading work per term, and what does the term structure mean for reporting and for the payment schedule.
- Factor in Davao traffic and distance. A school that is fifteen minutes away in theory can be considerably more in practice, and the daily cost of that falls on the child.
- Talk to current parents about teacher retention, homework load, how concerns are handled, and what the year actually cost them.
- Think in thirteen-year terms if the school runs K-12. Continuity has real value, and so does not repeating the transfer process.
For comparison across cities, see our guides to private school tuition in Manila and in Cebu, and our roundup of private schools in Davao.
Sources
- DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026, Guidelines on the Implementation of the Three-Term School Calendar in Basic Education — SY 2026-2027 dates, 201 class days, repeal of DO 012 s.2025
- DepEd Order No. 11, s. 2011, Amendments to the 2010 Revised Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education — amending DepEd Order No. 88, s. 2010
- Republic Act No. 6728, Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Act — Sections 3, 5 and 7
- DepEd Order No. 017, s. 2026, Strengthened Senior High School Curriculum
