Filipino workers stationed in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who want to convert years on the job into a college diploma will get another chance to learn how, as the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) prepares a second virtual briefing on its equivalency and scholarship tracks.
The session is scheduled for August 14, 2026, at 2:00 PM Philippine time, and will run through Zoom. Login details will go out to those who sign up in advance, with registration open through the link bit.ly/4aDycM9 or a scannable QR code posted by the commission. This round is aimed specifically at overseas Filipino workers based in the two Gulf states.
At the heart of the briefing is the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program, or ETEEAP, which credits a worker’s accumulated skills and experience toward a bachelor’s degree without requiring the usual classroom hours. Applicants generally need to be at least 23, to have finished high school, and to have started but not completed college; technical-vocational graduates also qualify. Rappler reported that eligible workers should have around five years of relevant experience, with assessment carried out by deputized institutions through portfolio review, written tests, practical demonstrations, and an oral defense.
Organizers will also walk participants through the ETEEAP Online Enlistment System, the digital registration platform CHED activated earlier this year so that Filipinos abroad could sign up and undergo pre-assessment without flying home. Formally branded ENROLL OFWs, the platform pairs online portals with kiosks placed inside partner campuses in the Philippines.
The third component is the Lifelong Learning Education Assistance Program for OFWs, known as LEAP OFWs, a scholarship arrangement between CHED and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. According to Rappler, OWWA had not yet fixed the exact grant amount when the joint program was signed in late April, though the money is to be drawn from its Alagang OWWA Fund, which carries a P500-million allocation for 2026. A pilot batch of 100 slots was set aside for qualified applicants.
CHED Chairperson Shirley Agrupis has framed the initiative as a way to help returning workers re-enter the domestic labor market. “The objective is to improve employment readiness, enable career mobility, and support the reintegration of OFWs,” she said. Speaking in Filipino, she has also told workers they would not be forced to begin from zero.
Uptake abroad has already been substantial. Business World and Gulf News reported that 1,409 OFWs were enrolled in ETEEAP while still working overseas — spread across the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States — pursuing degrees in fields such as engineering, business and finance, allied health, and education. A CHED demand survey in January 2026 logged more than 5,000 workers expressing interest, with hospitality and tourism, health sciences, and teacher education drawing the strongest demand.
The program traces its current legal footing to a law signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2025, which institutionalized the decades-old equivalency scheme. As of the commission’s mid-year reporting, well over a hundred higher education institutions nationwide had been authorized to deliver ETEEAP.
