An increasing number of Filipino women are learning new skills by enrolling in courses and programs online amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conclusion was drawn in Coursera’s The Women and Skills Report which compared the pre-pandemic enrolment and performance data with trends observed on the platform since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic through June 2021.
A 774 percent year-on-year growth in enrolments from women learners in the Philippines was recorded which was the highest increase out of 190 countries.
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Also, more women have participated in the certificate training programs aimed at entry-level digital jobs.
Raghav Gupta, managing director for India and APAC at Coursera, said in a statement, that he believed that the new norm of “remote work and online learning is setting a solid foundation of a more inclusive recovery.”
It was found that majority of women enroll in business-related courses, with communication at the top (1.2 million enrolments), followed by leadership and management, entrepreneurship, marketing, and business analysis. Most popular courses are also in the business domain including “Excel Skills for Business” (Macquarie University) and “Write Professional Emails in English” (Georgia Institute of Technology).
The Filipino women are also investing in critical STEM skills like “probability and statistics, data analysis, and computer programming” with “Programming from Everybody” offered by the University of Michigan among the most popular courses.
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Betty Vandenbosch, chief content officer of Coursera, said, “ I earned my computer science degree with only a handful of women alongside me, and while a great deal has changed since then, we still have important work to do to increase women’s representation in technology and leadership.”
The interest in certificate training programs for entry-level digital jobs also went up to 47 percent in 2021 against 33 percent in 2019. The certificates from industry leaders such as Google, IBM, and Facebook were designed to prepare learners without a college degree or technology experience for a wide range of high-demand digital jobs.
Currently, Coursera has over 5,000 courses and 87 million learners on the platform. (AW)
