According to Coursera, a quiet crisis is unfolding in workplaces across the Philippines: technology is advancing faster than people can learn.
This is further supported by the latest findings from the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Future of Jobs Report, which found that a staggering 67% of Filipino employers now see the growing gap between the skills their employees have and the skills their business needs as the single biggest barrier to transformation.
With nearly seven in ten workers requiring reskilling in the next five years, companies are in a race against time to build a future-proof workforce.
Coursera’s mission, since its inception in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, has been to provide universal access to world-class learning. In response to the urgent challenge of the widening skills gap, the global online learning platform has announced the launch of SkillTracks, a new data-driven solution designed to act like a personalized GPS for career development.
Instead of offering a vast library of individual courses, SkillTracks provides a clear, structured roadmap for specific job roles, guiding employees from foundational knowledge to expert-level proficiency in high-demand fields like Software Development, IT, Data Science, and Generative AI.
This new approach aims to solve a common problem with corporate training: a lack of clear direction. Employees are often unsure of which courses to take, while leaders struggle to connect learning initiatives to tangible business outcomes. SkillTracks is engineered to eliminate this guesswork.
“Companies are deploying new technology faster than their people can keep pace, and they need learning solutions that are adaptive and personalized,” said Coursera CEO Greg Hart. “Coursera SkillTracks delivers a learning experience built around occupations and job tasks, and it is a major step towards helping learners master the right skills to grow their careers.”
Coursera: Data-driven engine behind the skills gap roadmap
The intelligence powering SkillTracks is Coursera’s Career Graph, a sophisticated system that analyzes millions of labor market data points from around the world.
By mapping the precise relationships between specific jobs, the skills required for those jobs, and the best learning content to acquire them, the platform can create highly relevant and efficient learning paths.
This ensures that the training isn’t just theoretical but is directly applicable to an employee’s daily tasks and long-term career goals. Key features of the new solution include:
- A tailored learning experience: While the tracks feature world-class content from partners like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Yale, and Stanford, companies can customize them by adding their own internal training materials. This allows businesses to align the learning with their specific tools, workflows, and strategic priorities.
- Verifiable, real-world skills: Progress is measured through rigorous assessments and hands-on projects, not just course completion. Learners earn verifiable credentials that prove they can actually apply what they’ve learned, giving both employees and employers confidence in their new abilities.
- Real-time insights for leaders: The platform provides managers with dashboards to track team progress, ensuring that skill development programs stay aligned with evolving business goals and market demands.
Earlier this year, the global giant in online learning entered into a partnership with iPeople Inc., a powerhouse in the Philippine education sector, in an effort to triple its reach and extend AI-powered education to 45,000 students annually, up from the previous 15,000.
The partnership will empower students across iPeople’s six institutions, including the prestigious Mapúa University, to earn up to 30% of their academic credits through Coursera courses. This integration of industry-recognized micro-credentials and flexible academic pathways aims to bridge the gap between academia and the demands of the modern workforce.
Over the coming months, Coursera plans to introduce additional SkillTracks and new features, including skill diagnostics that help learners start at the appropriate level, avoiding redundant training and accelerating their journey to proficiency.
By empowering Filipinas with the skills and confidence to thrive in the GenAI landscape, Coursera is not just addressing a gender gap; it’s investing in a more equitable and innovative future for the Philippines and the world.
For the Philippines, where the digital economy is expanding rapidly, solutions that can efficiently close skill gaps are not just a corporate perk — they are an economic necessity.
By providing a clear and data-backed path for continuous learning, Coursera’s SkillTracks aim to empower both businesses and their employees to navigate the complexities of the modern workplace and turn the challenge of technological change into an opportunity for growth.
