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Online Vocational Education: A Philippine Experience 

 
Kiran S. Budhrani 

De La Salle University, Philippines 
kiranbudhrani@gmail.com 

 

Dr. Jose Lloyd D. Espiritu 

De La Salle University, Philippines 
espiritu.lloyd@gmail.com 

 
 

 
Abstract 

This paper presents the online education model and initial results of the Technical Education 

and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) ONLINE PROGRAM in the Philippines. The 

program was launched in March 2012, with an attempt for wider reach and to reduce the 

expenditures incurred by the trainees. To date, TESDA offers four online courses with over 

40,000 registered users (3,000 from at least 10 countries outside the Philippines). TESDA's re-

designed online education model has two main features: 1) Short-term courses are broken 

down into job-centered micro-courses and 2) Center-based skills training now follows a 

"Learn-Practice-Certify-Employ" hybrid approach. Current and future developments on the 

project will also be presented. 

 

Keywords: Blended Learning, Tech-Voc, Vocational Training, E-Learning, Adult Learning 

 
 

 

I. The Philippine Trifocalized Education and Training System 
The Philippines has a population of more than 93 million people. In fact, it is the 7th most populated 

Asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. Among the 93 million, 25 million 

are enrolled in some form of education or training across the three sub-sectors in the Philippine 

Education System: Basic Education, Mid-Level Education and Higher Education. There are 21 

million students enrolled in Basic Education (14 million in Elementary and 7 million in Secondary 

Level), and 4 million spread across Mid-Level (1.6 million) and Higher Education (2.6 million).  

 

Basic education is managed by Department of Education (DepEd). It focuses on the delivery of 

foundational competencies to prepare persons for higher learning. Currently, it covers 6 years of 

elementary education and 4 years of secondary education. Philippine formal basic education 

subsystem is one of the shortest in the Asia Pacific with just 10 years of basic schooling compared 

with 11 to 12 years in other countries. Major reforms in this sector is ongoing, particularly the K to 12 

Program, to increasing the number of years of basic education from 10 to 12 and making Kindergarten 

mandatory. 

 

Middle level education is managed by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority 

(TESDA). It focuses on post-secondary technical-vocational education and training for middle-level 

learners commonly known as TVET. These learners refer to the following: (1) those who have 

acquired practical skills and knowledge through formal and non-formal education and training 

equivalent to at least a secondary education; or (2) skilled workers who have become highly 

competent in their trade or craft as attested by industry. All middle-level learners go through a 

certification process as promulgated in the Philippine TVET Quality Framework (PTQF) to evince 

competency. (TESDA NTESDP, 2011) 

 

Higher education is managed by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). It is responsible in 

the formulation and implementation of policies, plans and programs for the development and efficient 

operation of the higher education system in the country. It focuses on baccalaureate degrees, graduate 

and postgraduate programs and offerings toward developing professionals and high-level manpower. 

 

mailto:kiranbudhrani@gmail.com
mailto:espiritu.lloyd@gmail.com


Online Vocational Education: A Philippine Experience. ASIACALL 2012. Ho Chi Minh City, 

Vietnam. Nov 16-18, 2012. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II. Delivery Modes of TVET Mid-Level Education 

 

Mid-Level Education or TVET is delivered across the 

country through a network of public and private 

institutions through the following modes (TESDA 

NTESDP, 2011): 

 

1. Community-Based – training delivery is 

conducted at the local/ community level, mostly in 

partnership with the local government units (LGUs) and 

the non-government organizations (NGOs); any 

individual of any level or age can join these programs. 

 

2. Enterprise-Based – training programs are 

implemented within companies/ firms; individuals are 

required to be High School graduates to join these 

programs. 

 

3. Center-Based – refer to the delivery of training 

programs by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Regional, 

Provincial and Specialized Training Centers as well as private training centers; individuals are 

required to be High School graduates to join these programs. 

 

For school year 2010-2011, there were an estimated 1.6 million enrolled in Mid-Level 

Education where the majority consisting of 882,000 students were enrolled in a TESDA 

training center (Figure 1).  

 

 

III. TESDA Embraces E-Training as a New Mode of Learning 

TESDA training centers are popular because it is recognized as the authority of TVET in the 

Philippines. Being responsible for the overall management and direction of the TVET system, it 

handles the following major tasks in the country (Peano, 2008):  

 

1. Direction Setting - through TVET policies and plans and information; 

Standard Setting and Systems Development - in the form of TVET programme registration and 

accreditation, competency, assessment and certification; and 

2. Support - through scholarships, capacity building, technical assistance and TVET delivery. 

 

Joining institutions worldwide that are maximizing and harnessing the power of the Internet 

and the use of ICT, TESDA has identified in its National Technical Education and Skills 

Development Plan (NTESDP) of 2011-2016 that it must integrate ICT in vocational education: 

 

The TESDA Technology Institutions (TTIs) and other selected private TVIs shall be utilized 

for the modeling and piloting of training in new and higher technologies. The integration of 

ICT in TVET offers unprecedented opportunities for TVET system to expand its capacity and 

to enhance and facilitate interaction across geographic distance to achieve greater learning 

objectives. The development of new broadband communication services and convergence of 

telecommunication with computers have created numerous possibilities to use a variety of new 

technology tools for teaching and learning system.  

 

Figure 1. TVET 

Enrolment by Delivery 

Mode 



AsiaCall Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2013 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2012 Proceedings, Kiran S. Budhrani and Jose L. D. Esperitu 

 

 

In 2011, TESDA engaged the TVET system in a bold step towards broadening access to TVET 

by embracing e-training and to enable a blended learning TVET program. It conceptualized the 

TESDA Online Program as a initiative to reach thousands of Filipinos globally through ICT. 

With this, TESDA aims to provide more training through technology-driven and technology-

managed learning environments and to improve the teaching and learning process.  

 

 

IV. Issues on Shifting from Classroom Training to Online 

With the objective of reaching more trainees, TESDA, just like many learning institutions, 

tapped the power of ICTs and decided to move training online. To date, TESDA offers over 

200 courses on 15 sectors (Table 1) at its training 

centers. Admission into these courses requires 

those interested to fill out an application form 

and undergo pre-assessment. Once admitted, 

trainees attend training at the center to acquire 

the competencies defined by TESDA. Typically 

they follow short-term courses, spanning 

anywhere from 6 to 24 months. Once courses are 

completed, trainees must pass a performance / 

trade test and a written exam. After successfully 

passing the assessments, trainees receive 

National Certificates or NCs. 

 

The current admissions-training-certification 

process was analyzed and key observations 

surfaced if these courses were to go online: 

 

1. On the course duration 

Short courses that were typically learned in 6-24 

months cannot be delivered the same manner if it 

was online. An online learner will not stay online for 4-8 hours, for 6-24 months. 

 

2. On the training mode 

With the nature of courses being under TVET program, courses are highly skills oriented. It is 

expected that trainees will need to practice skills using facilities and specialized equipment 

available at training centers. 

 

3. On the assessment  

Certification cannot be done online. A performance / 

trade test is required to prove competency of skills to 

earn National Certificates (NC). 

 

 

V. Strategies to Design the TESDA Online Program 

The effort to move TESDAs TVET programs online 

required rethinking of their course delivery, 

methodology, and redesigning their training model. 

The following strategies were defined to guide the 

planning, development, and implementation of the 

TESDA online courses:  

 

1. Redesign the educational Model to fit online       

mode 
Figure 2. TESDA Online 

Program Hybrid Learning 

Model 

Table 1. TVET Sectors 



Online Vocational Education: A Philippine Experience. ASIACALL 2012. Ho Chi Minh City, 

Vietnam. Nov 16-18, 2012. 

 

Research has shown that more successful and effective e-learning programs are those that aim 

to strengthen content knowledge and not develop new skills.  

  

 Assessing the limitations of e-learning technologies and the nature of TVET courses, it is 

acknowledge that not all content in the current TESDA courses can be placed online. The 

strategy was to segment the training activities of the student.  

  

 Center-based training will have to apply a hybrid learning environment following a "Learn-

Practice-Certify-Employ" model where a student admitted into a course learns concepts, 

theories, and procedures online but practice (in laboratories) and certification will remain at 

TESDA centers. Trainees will be able to access content to learn anywhere, anytime as long 

as they have a computer and internet connection.   

 

2. Re-engineer courses to fit jobs 

Taking a very pragmatic approach, the current 

courses of TESDA were reviewed to identify the 

specific jobs certified graduates of TESDA land 

into. It was clear that today, a TESDA course 

typically prepares one for several jobs – for 

instance – a graduate of the Hotel and Restaurant 

course may land anywhere in waitering, 

housekeeping, bartending, or valet servicing. The 

courses are long because the trainee is expected to 

take all courses to prepare for all jobs.  

 

To fit the online delivery mode, courses that are 

typically 6-24 months long will have to be have to 

be redesigned and broken down to fit a 2 to 4 week 

micro-course focused on one job. Thus, the trainee 

trains for the job than for the certificate. With this 

ladderized design for TVET, many students can 

work immediately in one job, then purse other 

online courses while while working. 

  

3. Select courses “in-demand”  

TESDA offers over 200 courses at its training 

centers, but just a few had to be prioritized and selected as pilot courses for the online program. 

The main criteria for selection was that the course had to be “in demand”. Specifically, either 

the course must have a high number of graduates or the course is currently a popular industry 

requirement.  

 

Evaluating TESDA’s 2005-2011 TVET Statistics (Table 2), four courses were identified to 

work on: Consumer Electronics Servicing, Computer Hardware Servicing, Housekeeping, and 

Food & Beverage Services. Electronics was specially selected based on popularity, while the 

other three were selected based on the high number of graduates.  

 

 

VI. The First Philippine Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) for TVET 

 

The Massive Open Online Courseware or MOOCs are a more recent form of online course 

development that emerged from formats that relied on posted resources, LMS, and VLEs. 

According to   MOOCs are the educational buzzword of 2012 (Daniel, 2012). A MOOC is a 

course that is free, open, distributed and supports life-long networked learning. It has course 

materials, participants, a start and end date; but it is not a school. The MOOC is built for a 

TVET Course Gr

ad

uat

es 

Consumer Electronics 

Servicing 

6,9

58 

Computer Hardware 

Servicing 

32,

30

2 

Housekeeping 37,

04

0 

Food & Beverage 

Services 

32,

84

1 

Table 2. TVET Course Graduate 

Count 



AsiaCall Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2013 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2012 Proceedings, Kiran S. Budhrani and Jose L. D. Esperitu 

 

 

world where information is everywhere, and a click away – a world where internet connection 

gives access to a large amount of information. 

 

The MOOC has divided into two types which are known as the cMOOCs (Connectivist 

MOOC) and the xMOOCs (traditional MOOC). They are so distinct in pedagogy that it is 

confusing to designate them by the same term (Hill, 2012). The first course carrying the name 

MOOC was offered in 2008. The pedagogical style of the early courses, now called cMOOCs, 

was based on a philosophy of connectivism and networking. By design, cMOOCs enables 

students to acquire new information not only from course material, but from participating with 

social media (i.e. blogs, twitter) and collaborating with social networks (i.e. posting comments, 

Q&A forums). 

 

xMOOC cMOOC 

Open Open 

Free Free 

Canned content Fragmented Content (over 

the web) 

Centralized discussion 

forums 

Distributed forums 
(learner 

created blogs / microblogs) 

Knowledge transmission and 

duplication (through videos, 

courseware) 

Knowledge creation and 

generation (through social 

media, web links) 

Behaviorist 
(mastery, 

duplication) 

Connectivist 
(social, 

collaborative, networked) 

Table 3 Comparison of xMOOC and cMOOC 

 

The cMOOC is quite distinct from the new wave of xMOOCs evolving in 2012 which follow a 

more behaviorist learning approach. Since early 2012, top U.S. universities such as Stanford 

Universitiy, MIT, Harvard and UC Berkeley have been offering free, chunked courses through 

open sites like Udacity, edX, and Coursera. In September 2012, Google offered its first 

xMOOC on its own open-source platform called Course Builder. By design, xMOOC lessons 

are lectures, chunked into roughly 15-minute video segments launched every week. 

 

By comparison (Table 3), the cMOOC design focuses on knowledge creation and generation 

among networked learners while the xMOOC design focuses on a more traditional learning 

approach through video presentations, short quizzes and testing.  

 

The MOOC is one way of learning in a networked world (Cornier, 2010) with the power to 

reach many and provide access to education. TESDA has patterned its implementation on 

xMOOCs to provide free, open, online TVET education to anyone, anywhere in the world. The 

TESDA Online Program is the First Philippine Massive Open Online Courseware (MOOC) for 

TVET. The MOOC runs on Moodle at http://www.e-tesda.gov.ph/. Students must select a 

course and register themselves to have access to course content (Figure 3). 

 

http://www.e-tesda.gov.ph/


Online Vocational Education: A Philippine Experience. ASIACALL 2012. Ho Chi Minh City, 

Vietnam. Nov 16-18, 2012. 

 

   
Figure 3. TESDAs MOOC through Moodle 

 

Anyone from any part of world can access Tesda courses online for free. The contents are 

accessible for people to read, watch videos and even take quizzes. Everyone works in their own 

space, following their own pace as there is no defined schedule. There is a defined learning 

path, as indicated by the course outline, but there is no right or wrong way to go through the 

course. Students can choose what they want to do and how they want to participate. If a student 

wants to jump across topic to see what is ahead, they can. And if a student wants to revisit a 

video to practice a skill, they can repeat it any number of times.   

 

There is no facilitator present to check whether the student read a specific material or took the 

quiz. Although, it is acknowledged that role of facilitator in learning is important, the Tesda 

MOOC was designed without any external facilitator in the learning process. Rather, the 

facilitator is infused in the course through the narrated instructional video demonstrations 

where the facilitator is deemed as the expert who teaches the best techniques for the skill. 

 

 

VII. Results from implementation (May – October 2012) 

 

The TESDA Online Program was launched May, 2012 with the four pilot courses. Data on site 

access, registration and enrollment were tracked though Google Analytics.  

 

1. Site Access 

From the time of launch to September 28, 2012, there were 161,355 site visits with the top four 

from the Philippines (137,000), Saudi Arabia (7,200), USA (3,100), and UAE (2,500). 

Furthermore, there were 113,007 unique visitors and 1,467,928 page views.  

 

2. Registration 

 From the time of launch to November 5, 2012, there were 46,172 registered users, where 

 3673 were overseas registrants. 

 

3. Enrollment  

Table 4 shows the number of students who went through regular enrolled at the TESDA center 

in 2011 and the additional number of students who enrolled online in 2012. In six months, the 

TESDA Online Program increase enrollment by an average of 11%, reaching 20% more 

students in Computer Hardware Servicing, 10% more students in Room Attendant Servicing, 

7% more students in Guest Room Attendant Servicing and 4% more students in Cellphone 

Repair.  

 

Table 4. TESDA Online Program Enrollment Data (May - Nov, 2012) 



AsiaCall Online Journal (ISSN 1936-9859) 2013 – Special Issue – AsiaCALL2012 Proceedings, Kiran S. Budhrani and Jose L. D. Esperitu 

 

 

 

The increase in enrollment or reach in just six months shows that the TESDA Online Program has 

much potential towards broadening access to TVET through e-training. It is successful in establishing 

a new mode of delivery for vocational education as the enrollment numbers continue to increase daily. 

  

TESDA has identified that top beneficiaries of TVET includes primarily the high school 

graduates, secondary school leavers (OSYs), the unemployed, employed but needing upskilling 

/ reskilling, and displaced workers who lost their jobs because of closure of establishments, 

retrenchment or laying-off. Other potential TVET clients include college undergraduates and 

graduates who want to acquire competencies in different occupational fields and returning 

overseas Filipino workers who decide to discontinue working abroad. Vocational training 

courses improve the employment prospects of these individuals.   

  

 TESDA’s MOOC enables a technology-driven and technology-managed learning 

environment for adult training, accessible not only in the Philippines, but to anyone interested 

in learning TVET for a second chance towards employment. 

 

 

VII. Recommendations 

 

 As for future steps, TESDA has identified additional courses to launch online including 

Caregiver, Culinary Arts and Bartending. More work has to be done redesigning courses and 

creating content for effective online learning. TESDA also intends to extend its work from 

MOOCs to other information systems such as content management systems, LMS, and virtual 

courseware.  

 

  

References 

 

 Daniel, J. (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and 

Possibility. http://blog4222.blogspot.ca/2012/09/making-sense-of-moocs-musings-in-maze.html  

 

 Hill, P. (2012). Four Barriers That MOOCs Must Overcome To Build a Sustainable Model. 

Downloaded from http://mfeldstein.com/four-barriers-that-moocs-must-overcome-to-become-

sustainable-model/  

  

 Peano, S. et.al. (2008). Investment in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in 

the Philippines. Downloaded from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001804/180405e.pdf  

(Accessed November, 2012) 

 

 Syjuco, A.B. n.d. The Philippine Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) 

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http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/file/Phil%20TVET%20system%20-%20syjuco.pdf  (Accessed 

January, 2013) 

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Online Vocational Education: A Philippine Experience. ASIACALL 2012. Ho Chi Minh City, 

Vietnam. Nov 16-18, 2012. 

 

 

 TESDA NDESDP. (2011). National Technical Education and Skills Development Plan of 

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 TVETipedia. (2010). Information on TVET in the Philippines. 

http://www.unevoc.unesco.org/tvetipedia.0.html?&tx_drwiki_pi1%5Bkeyword%5D=Philippines  

 

 UNESCO. (2012). Philippine Education For All 2015. Downloaded from  

http://planipolis.iiep.unesco.org/upload/Philippines/Philippines_EFA_MDA.pdf (Accessed 

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http://www.tesda.gov.ph/uploads/File/LMIR2011/july2012/NTESDP%20Final%20asofSept12.pdf
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