How Your Bachelor’s Degree Earned in the Philippines Affects Your Application for APEGA Professional License?

How Your Bachelor’s Degree Earned in the Philippines Affects Your Application for APEGA Professional License?

For the past several months of writing in the Alberta Filipino Journal, I already communicated to some Filipino Engineers who have landed in Alberta and some are planning to land in Alberta. They sent me questions and some personal experiences they encounter during their journey towards the licensing process to APEGA. The most common issues they hurdle are the crediting of their Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering earned back home. Take note that the total number of years of study from Grade 1 up to their earned their Engineering degree is 15 years. That is before the implementation of the K-12 programs in the Philippines.

APEGA uses the World Education Services (WES) – a third party educational credential evaluation provider base in Toronto, Canada to initially evaluate the educational credential of the APEGA applicant and make further recommendation of the credential equivalency of the education gained in the Philippines based from the applicant’s submitted document to WES.

Several Filipino Engineers who graduated from different University and Institution have already contacted me in the past and share their experiences with the result of their WES Evaluation. These Filipino Engineers who graduated with the same degree, the same number of years of study and the same approved curriculum of the Commission of Higher Education of the Philippines has arrived at different Equivalency in Canada.

WES make recommendation to APEGA whether the study completed by the applicant in the Philippines is an Engineering Degree which is equivalent to Engineering Degree in Canada. If the applicant resulted to a “Bachelor Degree of Equivalent to 4 years”, he/she can proceed further to the application process. But, if the equivalency resulted to “Completion of Community College Diploma” – the applicant need to take further study (of at least one year) or take the technical exams to be conducted by APEGA.

Academic credential evaluation is the biggest roadblock of most Filipino Engineers who are hoping to join the Engineering Workforce of Canada.

I did some research and the result is not favorable to Engineers who graduated from “not so popular” University in the Philippines. Below is the WES Degree Evaluation Tool that can be found in the WES Canada Website.

The first is the result of equivalency of the same 5-year degree Civil Engineering program in a University in Manila. The Degree Equivalency of Civil Engineering is “Bachelor’s Degree (4 years).

The second is the result of equivalency of the same 5-year degree Civil Engineering program in a Technical School in Manila. The Degree Equivalency of Civil Engineering is “Bachelor’s Degree (3 years).

The third is the result of equivalency of the same 5-year degree Civil Engineering program in a State University in Manila. The Degree Equivalency of Civil Engineering is “Completion of Secondary school education and Community College Diploma (2 years)”.

And, the fourth is the result of equivalency of the same 5-year degree Civil Engineering program in a Prime State University in the Visayas. The Degree Equivalency of Civil Engineering is “Completion of Secondary school education and Community College Diploma (2 years)”.

I attached the screenshot of the result of the equivalency tool which is accessible to everyone to try the degree equivalent of your degree in Canada. Although WES did some disclaimer that the result is not final and conclusive, but the school where you graduated has something to do with your academic evaluation. I intentionally did not put the “school or institution” not to degrade it “further”.

The purpose of this article is to equipped our Filipino Engineers with information on how to overcome this obstacle. If the evaluation is not favorable to you – you have still the option of pursuing further studies or challenging the technical exams. By then, the school you graduated – does not matter at all because you become a globally competitive engineer.

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