Mapúa University, one of the country’s leading engineering and technical universities in the country, has long observed a trend in micro credentialing and upskilling with most employers now preferring graduates who have skills that go beyond what is taught in the classroom. Thus, the expansion of abilities to minimize skills gaps is not anymore, a ‘nice-to-have’, but a ‘must-have’ – a new normal – for future professionals.
This is why since 2019, they saw this trend as an opportunity to help build students who are globally ready through a partnership with a leading global online learning platform – Coursera.
Just recently, Mapúa University, together with the Yuchengco-led educational institutions under iPeople, expanded this partnership to continuously provide learners with industry-recognized micro-credentials, increasing their employability here and overseas.
“It’s really something for our students because they will not only graduate with a Mapúa degree but with bankable certificates attesting to their skills”, said Dr. Reynaldo B. Vea, President of Mapúa University and Chairman of iPeople, Inc. at a press conference announcing the expansion of the partnership last November 3.
Online courses from international top-ranking universities and companies that are leaders in the technological field have been introduced and integrated into Mapúa’s college curriculum to enhance the learning experience of students outside the course syllabus.
“Students get to be exposed to international standards of education and we get to deal with global companies by bringing them into our system of education. With these supplemental courses, we are filling gaps in the curriculum with high-level material increasing the employability of our students”, added Vea.
Mapúa and Coursera’s partnership has, so far, impacted over 11,700 unique learners with more than 100,000 enrollments from Mapúa and its wholly owned and operated Malayan Colleges Laguna and Mapúa Malayan Colleges Mindanao combined.
“Building on the success, we are delighted to expand our partnership across all programs of iPeople, Inc. schools (Mapúa University, Malayan Colleges Laguna, Mapúa Malayan Colleges Mindanao, University of Nueva Caceres & National Teachers College) to help their students and alumni develop new-age skills and prepare for the well-paying jobs of the future”, said Raghav Gupta, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, Coursera. “It’s also exciting to enable faculty upskilling at scale, empowering them to provide distinguished education that keeps pace with the needs of the digital economy.”
Vea also believes that the internationalization of education through Coursera fits right in with their vision to produce a talent pipeline of skilled graduates and transform Mapúa into a digital, research-driven, outcomes-based, international domain.
“Arguably, we have the best implementation of at-scale online education in the country, and the integration of courses from online platforms is certainly a part of that”, Vea added.
Recently, Mapúa was recognized as one of the best universities in the world by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2023.
“The new recognition for Mapúa University from THE is an assurance for all of the excellence and global competitiveness of the Mapúa education. We are honored and humbled to have partnered with them on this journey – delivering high-quality online learning to enable on-the-job training (OJT), and preparing their students for career success in the fast-changing knowledge economy”, added Raghav.
Mapúa is the first university in the Philippines to use Coursera in 2019 across 6,000 students, with more than 58,000 Coursera course completions and with almost 50% of the skills being developed in the Data Science domain.
Since then, supplemental courses have been made available online not only to its students, but also to its faculty members to help them develop hands-on learning projects, and even to its alumni to support their lifelong learning and introduce career-switching opportunities.
