A Theory-Guided Alignment Analysis of Department of Education Policy Corpus through the Lens of Sustainable Governance

This study analyzes the extent to which the governance policy architecture of the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) aligns with principles of sustainable governance relevant to the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). Using a theory-guided qualitative document analysis anchored in the capacity-to-govern framework, a systematically curated DepEd policy corpus was examined. The analysis evaluated the degree of alignment across five governance dimensions. Findings indicate that the Department of Education is policy-rich and moderately aligns with principles of sustainable governance by Clark and Harley (2020). Strong normative commitments to SDG 4 coexist with uneven governance capacities needed to operationalize them. While policy coherence and equity commitments are generally well articulated, most policies demonstrate only moderate operationalisation in terms of resource capacity, multi-level governance, and adaptive capacity. The study contributes to sustainability science by demonstrating the applicability of the capacity-to-govern framework in educational policy analysis, provides an analytical model for examining how policy architectures support or constrain systemic progress toward SDG 4 and highlights the need for future research using empirical implementation data to validate identified gaps.