The COVID-19 pandemic pushed all people to heavily rely on information and communications technology for access to vital services on health, entertainment, commerce, and even education. Most activities have shifted from the traditional face-to-face transactions to ICT-enabled processes. People started to work from home, students and teachers adopted remote education, and businesses joined e-marketplaces.
This drastic disruption thrusting the people to utilize ICT has also brought to light the gap in digital literacy skills of Filipinos. Philippine Digital Economy 2020 Report by World Bank emphasized that these skills are imperative for individuals to “gain aptitude to access online services and use digital content to explore opportunities for personal and professional development”. The study revealed a wide gap in digital literacy caused by factors such as age, educational attainment, and household income. For this reason, we have conducted free ICT skills training for Filipinos.
From 2020-2022, this Digital Upskilling Program has accomplished:
- 116 courses conducted on Digital Governance, Digital Education, Digital Marketing, and CyberSecurity.
- 225,607 participants gained basic to advance ICT skills.
- 1,989 teachers earned Continuing Professional Development units required for license renewal.
- 368 equipped to land online jobs through the Digital Jobs intensive course.
- Learning Management System Portal and Mobile App launched with 21,100 registered users and 57,521 course certificates generated as of November 2022.

https://www.facebook.com/DICT.RO9BASULTA/

• Philippines

• Youth
• Older persons
• Women
• People with disabilities
• The unemployed
• Educators

While we only cover Zamboanga Peninsula Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi regions, our program has trained over 225,000 participants located across the country in just a span of 2 years. With the country’s 17 regions, other ICT agencies can replicate this digital literacy training program to equip more Filipinos with ability to utilize ICTs and explore a plethora of opportunities found in the digital realm.
These agencies can follow through our model of hosting the training online, open the registration to all interested participants, and release e-Certificates as incentive for their participation. The training materials/video lectures are also made available as open access materials which can provide content or serve as template for other training programs.

The training sessions are being done online via Zoom Communications Inc and streamed simultaneously on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/DICT.RO9BASULTA/). The training materials are available and accessible anytime on said Facebook Page for anyone to re-watch, watch later, or download.
For high-demand courses such as CyberSecurity and Digital Education, the courses are later uploaded in DICT’s locally developed learning management system (https://dictr9-lms.online/) with a feature that allows self-generation of certificates once session and evaluation are done. The LMS serves as an on-demand portal available for anyone to access anywhere, anytime. A mobile app version was also recently released to make the learning sessions more accessible to the public.
This model encourages continuing education and lifelong learning which is critical to the growth and development of target beneficiaries such as educators. Since the course materials are produced as Open Educational Resources through the DICT’s repository, continuous use can be assured.

The free training program equipped the participants on topics such as but not limited to open distance education, education technology, cybersafety, digital parenting, online marketing strategies, graphics design, video editing, hardware servicing, productivity tools, and programming essentials. These skills have enabled them to participate and benefit in the Information Society and digital economy. 70% of the training participants are also women, hence advancing the implementation of gender-inclusive programs that enable women to advance in the ICT industry. Persons with disability and senior citizens have also actively joined the online training courses in our pursuit of strengthening the vulnerable sector. As we witness new technologies sprout, traditional work is slowly becoming obsolete. Hence, this training has enhanced the current workforce with digital know-how to be able to ride the waves of digital transformation.