Micro-credentials help academia and enterprises fill skill gaps: Coursera

With the rapid pace of technological advancements and an increasing focus on skilling and reskilling, enterprises are increasingly adopting micro-credentials as a key criterion for workforce development. A micro-credential is a small course or program that verifies a learner's skills and knowledge.

 

Karine Allouche, general manager for enterprise at Coursera, highlighted that 95 per cent of Indian higher education leaders believe micro-credentials help create job-ready graduates.

 

“According to our survey, 52 per cent of institutions already offer micro-credentials for academic credit. And 94 per cent plan to do so within the next five years,” said Allouche.

 

She explained that the growing acceptance of micro-credentials is driven by the need for professionals to stay updated with the latest technological advancements.

 

“Revamping a four-year curriculum is not easy, but micro-credentials enable faster upgrades. That’s one of the reasons why universities use our platform — our content is continuously updated, something most universities struggle to do with their faculty,” she added.

 

Coursera works with 160 enterprise clients in India, which includes names like L&T, and Reliance. It has tieups with 1,100 institutes and two state governments.

 

Allouche also said that because of players like Coursera, the industries, government and academia are finally on the same level. “In my interactions with enterprises here, we are seeing that they are creating local partnerships with academic institutions, and along with us, they can create customisable pathways for businesses,” she added.

 

What this means is that students who have done these courses from Coursera have a higher chance of being interviewed by an enterprise.

 

Allouche also said that many enterprises are using course from Coursera’s platform to prepare the fresher talent that is joining the workforce.

 

“One of the Global Systems Integrators (GSIs), which uses Coursera for the onboarding of fresher talent, said that since they started using Coursera, their onboarding time has reduced by half. From a learner’s point, we were told by an institute that those who did a professional certificate course actually got two-times salary,” she added.

 

This is crucial for a country like India, which is expected to have one of the highest employee bases by 2030. “Enrolments in GenAI have quadrupled from 2023 to 2024, with someone in India enrolling in GenAI content every minute. India has the highest enrolment rate on Coursera at 1.3 million,” she said.