TL;DR: The number that should shape your decision is not a school ranking, it is the 17-point gap between levels. In the March 2026 LET, elementary passed 18,376 of 32,796 — 56.03 per cent, while secondary passed 45,001 of 61,561 — 73.10 per cent. Combined that is 63,377 of 94,357, about 67 per cent. The exam ran on 15 March 2026 in 41 testing centres, and results took thirty-nine working days, arriving 12 May 2026. Passing means an average of at least 75 per cent with no subtest below 50. For per-school performance, PRC publishes a Performance of Schools table with every release — that, not a listicle, is where the real school data lives.
Introduction
The Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers is the mandatory professional exam for education graduates, and a school's LET performance is the most useful single signal about its programme — provided you read the right source.
Start with what the exam actually did in its most recent cycle:
| March 2026 LET | Passed | Examinees | Passing rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elementary | 18,376 | 32,796 | 56.03% |
| Secondary | 45,001 | 61,561 | 73.10% |
| Combined | 63,377 | 94,357 | about 67% |
Of the elementary passers, 15,670 were first-timers and 2,706 repeaters. Of the secondary passers, 39,446 were first-timers and 5,555 repeaters.
The Most Important Number Here Is the Gap
Almost every guide to education schools leads with a ranking. The more decision-relevant fact is that the elementary LET is substantially harder to pass than the secondary LET — 56.03 per cent against 73.10 per cent, a gap of roughly 17 percentage points in a single cycle.
If you are heading into elementary education, that is your actual context. It means your school's elementary-track performance matters more than its overall reputation, that a review programme is a more defensible expense than it would be for a secondary taker, and that comparing your prospects against a friend sitting the secondary exam is comparing two different things.
Note also the thirty-nine working day wait for results. That is long even by Philippine board standards, and it has practical consequences: teaching posts for the coming school year are often filled while you are still waiting. Factor the lag into which cycle you sit. Our LET application requirements guide covers filing.
Why This Guide No Longer Ranks Fifteen Schools
An earlier version of this page ranked fifteen education schools by LET passing rate. It has been rebuilt, for two reasons.
The bottom of such lists is filler. More than half the entries carried "above national average" and "multiple cycles" instead of a figure. That is not data. With a secondary passing rate of 73.10 per cent, a school passing 74 per cent is above the national average and is not thereby among the best in the country. Padding a top-fifteen with unmeasured entries makes the whole list look authoritative when only the top few are actually measured.
Per-school percentages are hard to verify and easy to get wrong. In reviewing this cluster we found a school-level claim on a sister page that was flatly contradicted by PRC's own release. Rather than republish figures we could not trace to a PRC Performance of Schools table, we have removed them and are telling you how to get the real ones — which takes about fifteen minutes and is better than any list.
How to Read PRC's School Data Properly
PRC publishes a Performance of Schools table with every LET release, plus a separately drawn list of top-performing schools that applies a minimum examinee count alongside a minimum overall passing percentage.
That examinee threshold is the part most rankings ignore, and it is the part that matters most. Always read passers over examinees, never the percentage alone. A school passing 4 of 4 shows 100 per cent and tells you essentially nothing. A school passing 390 of 394 tells you a great deal. Any list that puts those two side by side is not measuring what it claims to measure.
Three rules for reading the table:
- Check the level you are actually taking. Elementary and secondary performance are reported separately, and a school strong in one is not automatically strong in the other. Given the 17-point national gap, this is the single most common misreading.
- Check at least three cycles. One strong year is noise — a small graduating cohort, a favourable mix of repeaters. A school that clears PRC's threshold repeatedly is telling you something structural.
- Look at the size of the cohort. A normal school with two hundred examinees and a high rate is doing something much harder than a boutique programme with twelve.
The Institutions Worth Checking First
These are the schools whose teacher-education programmes are worth looking up in PRC's tables before anything else. This is a shortlist for your research, not a ranking, and it carries no percentages for the reasons above.
| School | Location | Type | Why check it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philippine Normal University | Manila | State | The National Center for Teacher Education — a statutory designation, not a marketing claim |
| Cebu Normal University | Cebu City | State | The Visayas normal university, teacher education as core mandate |
| Leyte Normal University | Tacloban | State | Eastern Visayas normal university, focused teacher-education mandate |
| West Visayas State University | Iloilo City | State | Long-established College of Education, particularly for elementary |
| Bicol University | Daraga, Albay | State | Regional teacher-education centre for Bicol |
| Southern Luzon State University | Lucban, Quezon | State | Principal education programme for Quezon and southern Tagalog |
| Mindanao State University | Marawi City | State | Trains a large share of teachers for BARMM and Lanao |
| Central Mindanao University | Musuan, Bukidnon | State | Northern Mindanao's main education programme |
| Benguet State University | La Trinidad | State | The Cordillera's principal teacher-education institution |
| Bukidnon State University | Malaybalay | State | Elementary, secondary, SPED and early childhood tracks |
| Pangasinan State University | Lingayen | State | Multi-campus, high-volume producer in one of the largest provinces |
| Silliman University | Dumaguete | Private | Founded 1901, long-standing College of Education |
| UST | Manila | Private | Established College of Education at a large university |
| UP Diliman | Quezon City | State | Research-led education programme, small teaching cohorts |
| DLSU | Manila | Private | Small education cohorts, strong placement into private schools |
Two Structural Facts Worth Knowing
The normal universities exist for this one job. PNU, CNU and LNU were established specifically for teacher education, and PNU carries the statutory designation of National Center for Teacher Education. Their curricula are not a faculty inside a general university; teacher training is the institution's purpose. That is a real structural difference, and it is checkable, unlike most claims about programme quality.
Teacher education is dominated by state universities, and they charge no tuition. Under RA 10931, tuition and other school fees are free for eligible Filipino undergraduates at state universities and colleges. Every state institution in the table above therefore costs ₱0 in tuition. Our guide to how to become a teacher in the Philippines walks through the full route from degree to licence. When the strongest concentration of teacher-education expertise in the country sits inside the free sector, paying private-school prices for an education degree needs a specific justification.
How to Choose the Best Education School
Look up your shortlist in PRC's tables, for your level, across three cycles
This is the whole method, and almost nobody does it. Open PRC's LET releases, find the Performance of Schools table, and read your candidate schools by name — checking the level you will actually take and reading passers over examinees, not the percentage on its own. Repeat for three cycles.
Weigh the normal universities seriously
PNU, CNU and LNU exist for teacher education specifically, and PNU holds the statutory designation of National Center for Teacher Education. That is a genuine structural advantage over an education faculty inside a general university, and it is one of the few claims in this space you can verify without a data table.
Do not pay private prices without a reason
Teacher education's strongest concentration sits in the state sector, where tuition is ₱0 under RA 10931. If you are weighing a private education degree against a state one, name the specific thing the private school gives you — a particular specialisation, a placement pipeline into private schools, a location you can actually reach — rather than a general sense that it must be better.
Match the school to your specialisation
Elementary, secondary, special education and early childhood are different tracks with different faculty depth, and a school's strength in one does not carry to another. Ask the college directly which specialisations it considers its strongest, and check the corresponding level in the PRC data.
Weigh geography properly
Teacher-education institutions are spread across every region, and over four years the cost and fatigue of a long commute or of living away from home usually outweigh small differences in reputation. There is a credible state institution within reach of most of the country.
Consider what comes after the licence
A LET pass is the entry ticket, not the job. DepEd applies its own hiring criteria on top of the licence, and the timing of the hiring cycle interacts badly with the thirty-nine-day results wait. Read our DepEd teacher hiring requirements guide before you choose which LET cycle to sit.
Ask about practice teaching placements
Where a school sends its student teachers, and how closely it supervises them, varies more than any prospectus admits and shapes your first year in a classroom more than any subject you sat. Ask where last year's cohort was placed.
Sources
- PRC — March 2026 Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers results — elementary and secondary passers and examinees, 15 March 2026 exam date, 41 testing centres
- Teachers Click — March 2026 LET results released by PRC — 12 May 2026 release date, thirty-nine working days, first-timer and repeater splits
- Rappler — Results: March 2026 Licensure Examination for Professional Teachers — corroborating release detail
- PRC — Exam Results index — where each release's Performance of Schools table is published
- PRC — Schedule of Licensure Examinations for the Year 2026 — LET on 15 March and 20 September 2026
- Republic Act No. 10931, Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (Official Gazette) — why the state universities listed here charge no tuition
On the rankings removed from this page. An earlier version ranked fifteen schools by LET passing rate. Over half the entries carried "above national average" rather than a figure, and the percentages that were given could not be traced to a PRC Performance of Schools table. They have been removed rather than restated more vaguely. The shortlist above is a research list, not a ranking, and PRC's own tables are the authority.
Start your journey to becoming a licensed teacher. Browse education schools on SchoolFinderPH, and read our LET guide for coverage, application steps and what the exam actually tests.
