The school system in the Philippines used to follow the educational patterns of Spain and the United States, after their independence in 1946 the educational system changed completely.
Before the the completely new system was enforced in 2011, children went started 6 years of elementary education starting at the age of 6, and 4 years of high school education starting at the age of 12.Under this system compulsory education was not enforced. The new system is the compulsory K-12 educational system, Kindergarten through 1|2th grade.
All public and private schools in the Philippines must start classes from a date mandated by the Department of Education (usually every first Monday of June for public schools only), and must end after each school completes the mandated 200-day school calendar of DepEd (usually around the third week of March to the second week of April).
There are state-run schools and universities which suffer from low budgeting and can’t compete with the private ones. Even though the fees are very high in those private schools and colleges parents try very hard to send their children there, as they provide a better education for their children. And there are quite a few international schools, many of them former missionary or Christian schools, which cater to the expat community.
