Over half of Filipino students on Coursera are female, according to online training service Coursera’s 2022 Campus Skills Report, which showed that women take up 52% of Filipino registrants to their university-level offering Coursera for Campus (C4C).
Raghav Gupta, managing director of Coursera in Asia Pacific, said in a media roundtable that higher education leaders can use this trend to close the Philippines’ gender gap in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
“A lot of women are coming onto the Coursera platform to learn. Quite a few are learning STEM subjects, which are the foundation of the digital jobs… presumably to make a career in the high-demand the digital jobs of the future,” he said on Tuesday.
As of 2022, 1.5-million Filipinos have registered to Coursera.
“This is a good sign as the access to equal online education leads to equal employment opportunities. We believe that the new norm of remote work and online learning is setting a solid foundation of a more inclusive recovery,” added Mr. Gupta.
Of all the countries featured in the report, the Philippines has the highest percentage of female campus learners enrolled on Coursera. In contrast, India and Turkey saw women making up only 40% and 44% of learners respectively.
Coursera also found that 34% of Filipino C4C learners use mobile, proof of both the limited connectivity as well as fast-paced lifestyle that Filipinos have.
Mr. Gupta shared that Clips is one of the new offerings that the platform has which breaks down courses into short, easily digestible video clips.
“We are excited about Clips because these easily searchable, bite-sized videos quickly enable employees to develop the role-based skills needed to do their job successfully in the fast-changing work environment,” he said.
The company also optimized its interface to allow learners to download courses, synchronize progress, take notes, and calendar sync for low data consumption.
Coursera said that 60 Philippine campus customers collaborated via C4C. — Bronte H. Lacsamana