Education in the Philippines is managed and regulated by the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). DepEd is responsible for the K-12 basic education; it exercises full and exclusive control over public schools and nominal regulation over private schools, and it also enforces the national curriculum that has been put in place since 2013. CHED and TESDA, on the other hand, are responsible for higher education; CHED regulates the academically-oriented universities and colleges while TESDA oversees the development of technical and vocational education institutions and programs in the country.
From 1945 to 2011, basic education took ten years to complete--six years of elementary education and four years of high school education for children aged six up to fifteen. However, after the implementation of the K-12 Program of DepEd and subsequent ratification of Kindergarten Education Act of 2012 and Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, the basic education today takes thirteen years to complete--one year of kindergarten, six years of elementary education, four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school for children aged five up to seventeen. As of 2016, the implementation of Grade 11 has started.
Meanwhile, higher education requires even as little as two years (e.g. associate degree) or much longer (e.g. bachelor's degree, master's degree, doctorate) to complete in universities and colleges, and much shorter in technical and vocational schools. University of the Philippines serves as the country's national university and widely regarded as the top higher education institution in the Philippines. There is also a large number of state universities and colleges and privately-run ones, and can either be for-profit or not-for-profit and secular or religious.
The school year usually runs from June to March, although it may also end in April, depending on when the Holy Week is. Republic Act 7797 states that a school year may not exceed two hundred and twenty school days, and that it may only start classes between the first Monday of June and last day of August. While K-12 private schools are free to assign the date of opening of classes anytime they want as long as it is within the prescribed period, K-12 public schools have to follow a stringent school calendar crafted by DepEd regardless of circumstances.