TESDA online program getting popular among students

MANILA, Philippines — Amid rising cost of education, more technical vocational students are now opting to study the course online.

Over 1.2 million students have enrolled and  completed  technical vocational courses, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) reported yesterday.

TESDA director general Guiling Mamondiong said the TESDA Online Program (TOP) has recorded a total of 1,223,857 registered users for over six years.

“Of the total figure of TOP registered users, 894,390 have enrolled in various courses and at least 441,052 of them have completed an online course,” Mamondiong noted.

 In May 2012, the government launched TOP in a bid to make technical education more accessible to Filipino citizens through the use of information and communication technologies.

 “It aims to bring technical education one click away from students, out-of-school youth, unemployed adults and overseas Filipino workers,” Mamondiong said.

At this time, TOP offers 58 online courses from different industry sectors and the most popular courses for the last three years are basic computer operation (Intel Easy Steps), web development using HTML5 and CSS3, preparing cakes, provide housekeeping services to guests and the STAR online training program.

In the traditional face-to-face learning, Mamondiong said, students are required to be physically present in the Training Center in order to be trained. 

TESDA school-based programs are offered for free, but the others costs such as transportation and food allowances are shouldered by the students.

With TOP, Mamondiong said,  other costs of studying techvoc  can be reduced dramatically by taking the courses online.

The online courses available in the TOP are also offered for free, allowing the students to enroll in multiple classes at the same time.

Based on a study conducted by the Philippine Institute on Development Studies, 56 percent of the respondents identified skills upgrading and enhancement as the number one reason for enrolling in TOP, while 18.8 percent of the respondents enrolled in TOP for employment purposes.

 Filipinos abroad who studied techvoc courses through TOP posted a high certification rate of 89.66 percent.

“These results show beyond doubt the success of digitizing the delivery of TVET courses through the TOP, an effective alternative learning system for enhancing and acquiring new skills for employment and promotion - at your own pace, space and time - at no cost,” Mamondiong said.