TL;DR: SchoolFinderPH is a curated directory, not a government register. It currently holds 767 school profiles and 221 review centre profiles across 17 regions, 101 cities and municipalities and 110 area pages, alongside several hundred guides. Every profile carries the same structural fields, which is what makes comparison work. Two fields are thinner than the rest and you should know it before you rely on them: published tuition figures exist for only a minority of profiles, and the star ratings are imported public Google reviews rather than verified parent testimony. Use the site to build a shortlist. Use the school to confirm the numbers.
Most directory guides are written as sales copy. This one is written as an instruction sheet, including the parts that are missing, because a shortlist built on a field you misunderstood is worse than no shortlist at all.
What Is Actually in the Directory
| Content type | How many | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| School profiles | 767 | Basic education and higher education, 713 private and 54 public |
| Review centre profiles | 221 | Licensure and entrance exam preparation providers |
| Area pages | 110 | Cities and municipalities, across 17 regions |
| Guides | Several hundred | Enrolment, tuition, scholarships, board exams, curriculum policy |
That is a directory of some depth in the places most people search, and genuinely incomplete elsewhere. DepEd's Basic Education Information System holds the official masterlist of basic education schools and CHED holds the official list of higher education institutions. If your question is "does this school legally exist and hold a permit", those are the registers to consult, not us. Both are linked at the end.
Searching: Three Ways In
By name. Type any part of the school name. Partial names, common abbreviations and alternate spellings generally resolve.
By place. Search a city or municipality, or go straight to an area page such as Manila, Quezon City, Makati, Taguig or Pasig. Area pages are the better starting point when you do not yet have candidates in mind, because they show you the field before you narrow it.
By keyword. Terms describing a programme or approach, such as Montessori or international, surface schools whose profiles use that language. This is a text match against profile content, not a verified classification, so treat the result as a starting list to check rather than a certified category.
What a School Profile Contains
Every profile is built on the same fields, which is the point: a like-for-like comparison is only possible when both sides describe the same things.
- Identity and type. Name, whether the school is private or public, and its curriculum orientation.
- Location. Full address, barangay, city, province, region, and map coordinates.
- Levels offered. Nursery, kindergarten, elementary, junior high, senior high and college are recorded as separate flags, so you can tell at a glance whether a child can stay through.
- Contact details. Phone, email and website where we hold them. Phone numbers are present on most profiles; websites on around two-thirds.
- Practical facilities and services. Canteen, dormitory, school bus, and payment arrangements such as instalments.
- Recognition. CHED accreditation and autonomous status flags for higher education institutions, and named accreditations, such as PAASCU or an International Baccalaureate authorisation, where a school holds them. Around 223 profiles carry a named accreditation.
- Ratings and comments. Imported public Google reviews, on roughly 472 profiles.
The Two Fields to Treat With Care
This is the section other directories leave out, and it is the most useful part of this guide.
Published tuition is sparse. A specific tuition figure is available for only a small minority of profiles. That is not an oversight so much as a reflection of the market: most Philippine schools do not publish a fee schedule online, and those that do revise it every year. Where a profile shows no tuition figure, the correct reading is "we have no published figure", never "this school is inexpensive" and never "this school is free". Always confirm with the admissions office, and ask specifically what the figure includes, because miscellaneous fees, books and other charges are frequently quoted separately. Our tuition guides explain what to ask for.
Ratings are Google reviews, not parent testimony. The stars and comments on a profile are public Google reviews imported and labelled as such. They carry the usual properties of Google ratings: a small number of reviews, skewed toward people motivated to post, and often about parking or a front desk rather than about teaching. They are useful for spotting a repeated complaint. They are not a measure of academic quality, and no directory rating is.
Disclaimer: SchoolFinderPH is an independent directory and guide publisher. We are not affiliated with DepEd, CHED, PRC or TESDA, we do not process enrolment or applications, and we do not verify a school's permit status. Confirm legal status with the relevant agency and fees with the school.
A Comparison Framework That Survives Contact With Reality
Once you have three or four candidates, compare them on factors that actually differentiate, in roughly this order of weight:
| Factor | What to compare | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Levels offered | Whether the school covers every year you need | Avoids a forced transfer in three years' time |
| Total annual cost | Tuition plus miscellaneous, books, uniform, transport | The sticker figure is rarely the whole figure |
| Commute | Door-to-door time at the actual hour of travel | Compounds daily for years; the most underweighted factor |
| Recognition | Permit or recognition status, and any named accreditation | Matters for transfer, further study and licensure |
| Programme fit | Senior high tracks or degree programmes actually offered | Availability varies school by school, not just by type |
| Environment | Facilities, class size, religious affiliation | Determines the daily experience more than the brochure does |
Three habits make the comparison honest:
- Shortlist on location first, then filter on cost, then on fit. Doing it in the other order produces a list you cannot use.
- Compare at least three schools, including one public option. Public science and national high schools are frequently competitive with mid-tier private schools at no tuition cost.
- Visit the top two. No profile, ours or anyone's, substitutes for standing in the corridor at dismissal time.
Review Centres
The review centres directory covers 221 providers across 17 regions and 92 cities. Profiles record the examinations a centre prepares for, its delivery modes, and its contact and location details.
By examination, the coverage is heaviest where demand is: the Licensure Examination for Teachers and criminology appear on around 110 and 102 profiles respectively, followed by the nurse licensure examination and IELTS. Delivery mode is recorded too: all 221 offer face-to-face review, 85 offer an online option and 28 a hybrid arrangement.
What the profiles deliberately do not carry is a claimed passing rate you should act on. The Professional Regulation Commission publishes a performance of schools list with each examination, as required by Section 7(m) of Republic Act No. 8981, but it does not publish results by review centre, so any centre-level passing figure is a self-reported marketing claim. Our guides on how to choose a review centre and whether a review centre is worth it go through what to check instead.
Using the Guides Alongside the Directory
The directory answers "which schools". The guides answer "what do the rules say", which is usually the question underneath. The policy landscape moved substantially in 2026, so a few starting points:
- K to 12 curriculum guide for the structure of basic education
- Strengthened Senior High School curriculum for what replaced the old tracks and strands
- DepEd's new grading system for how grades and awards work now
- Kindergarten enrolment guide for the age cutoff and documents
- CHED free tuition guide for higher education costs at state institutions
What We Do Not Do
Worth stating plainly, because we are regularly asked:
- We do not process enrolment, applications, transfers or scholarships.
- We do not rank schools, and we do not publish licensure examination results.
- We do not accept payment for placement in the directory or in a guide.
- We cannot confirm whether a school holds a current government permit. DepEd and CHED can.
Disclaimer: the counts in this guide describe the directory as of this update and change as profiles are added. Tuition, contact details and programme offerings are supplied by schools and change without notice; verify anything decision-critical with the school directly.
Sources
- DepEd — Basic Education Information System, masterlist of schools
- Commission on Higher Education — official website
- Professional Regulation Commission — official website
- Republic Act No. 8981 — PRC Modernization Act of 2000, Section 7 (LawPhil)
Ready to find the right school? Browse schools or compare programmes, tuition and reviews across hundreds of Philippine schools on SchoolFinderPH.
