AMA Education System invested P150 million on its online education platform, which caters to students both in the Philippines and abroad.
“(We invested) north of a hundred fifty million (in AMA Online Education or AMA OEd)… To be online is the way to go. We can be everywhere in the world. You can access it anytime at your own pace, at your own leisure,” Amable “Miguel” C. Aguiluz IX, vice chairman and chief executive officer of AMA Education System, said in a recent briefing.
AMA OEd is the online learning platform of AMA University — a CHEd recognized and accredited institution. AMA Education System also operates AMA University, which offers Information Technology (IT) courses.
Mr. Aguiluz thought of creating a platform for distance learning to address the lack of access to education for some Filipinos. This after a student from AMA Davao raised this problem.
“If you think of ways to solve people’s problems, it might be a good business,” he said.
Launched in 2015, AMA OEd allows people who have no time to attend classes physically can now do so anywhere, anytime.
“What we did was we got a few top graduates of AMA on software development and a few system analysts. We told them about our dream to build a platform that would be accessible via the internet,” Mr. Aguiluz said. It took eight to nine months of trial and error to finalize the education platform.
There are 17 courses available on AMA OEd, such as computer studies, engineering, business administration, and arts and sciences courses.
Enrolled students can simply log on the platform to access lessons, which may be in the form of text, video, or audio. There is also an offline option for those who do not have internet access in their homes. Questions can also be posted in the platform, and the instructor will reply within 24 hours.
Just like traditional schools, there will also be seat work, quizzes, long tests, and final exams.
In order to ensure that the student is the one answering such tests, Mr. Aguiluz said that they developed a system that would detect malicious acts called the lock-down browser. This would also detect if the student would open other files, or have someone coach him. This also manipulates the device’s camera to take pictures of the student every 30 seconds for further security.
“We want to grow the business, the platform. Of course, our plan is to really go out of our comfort zone, which is targeting just the Filipinos. We want to go further and target the international students,
With a couple of improvement in the coming years, this will attract more students. We are very bullish about the future. We know that in the next 10 to 20 years, more students will favor the online versus the traditional school,” Mr. Aguiluz added.
Mr. Aguiluz said AMA OEd did not affect AMA University, given that all of the latter’s students are full-time.
As the online education platform attracts more attention, he expects more working professionals, and persons with disabilities (PWDs) to enroll.
AMA OEd is open to Filipinos and foreigners. Tuition fees for courses vary, but Mr. Aguiluz said these are “competitive.” — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
