Insider Spotlight
As AI adoption expands across industries, institutions are adapting their programs to help students develop practical skills that employers increasingly value.
Mapúa Malayan Digital College (MMDC) has introduced an institutional AI Fluency Framework aimed at helping working students develop the ability to apply AI in real-world settings.
The initiative follows hiring trends cited by the school, including Jobstreet by SEEK’s Hiring, Compensation & Benefits Report 2025, which found that 72 percent of businesses in the Philippines now consider AI knowledge in recruitment, and TestGorilla’s State of Hiring for AI Fluency 2026, which reported that 95 percent of organizations in the United States have made AI fluency a job requirement.
Why it matters
Employers are increasingly looking beyond familiarity with AI tools and toward candidates who can use AI responsibly to improve workflows, analyze information and support decision-making.
MMDC distinguishes AI literacy from AI fluency by defining the latter as the ability to collaborate productively with AI systems while maintaining accountability for outcomes.
“Literacy refers to knowing the breadth and depth of a space or subject. Fluency asks: can you work with it? There is a big difference between knowing AI and going through the entire process of using AI to organize and make sense of an organization’s data sets, for instance,” Mapúa Malayan Digital College chief learning officer Derrick Latreille said in a press statement.
“AI fluency is the capacity to collaborate productively and responsibly with AI systems. Instead of simply knowing and using AI to generate answers, AI-fluent individuals work with AI to enhance their work and decision-making, while still taking full accountability when applying to real-world situations,” he added.
The framework
Students first build communication, critical thinking, problem-solving and information literacy skills before being introduced to AI within their coursework. They then advance to using AI in projects and eventually apply the technology to solve industry-relevant problems through the college’s Projects, Problems and Cases learning model and AI-focused specializations.
“As an educational institution that advocates for Filipino working students, MMDC believes that we have a responsibility to prepare our students for the ‘real world.’ Strengthening their AI fluency will enable them to secure better career opportunities that will eventually help them achieve financial stability,” Mapúa Malayan Digital College vice president Jenny Chua said.
“For us, gearing up our students for AI fluency simply means setting them up for long-term career and financial success,” she added. —Vanessa Hidalgo| Ed: Corrie S. Narisma
