Online learning platform Coursera has announced the Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative to help governments worldwide, provide unemployed workers who lost their jobs due to the Coronavirus, with free access to 3,800 online courses.
The initiative’s goal is to help impacted workers develop the knowledge and skills to become re-employed. You can’t apply as an individual for the free courses; government agencies that serve unemployed workers have to apply for access.
Coursera on its website said, “Coursera for Government is designed for government agencies to provide reskilling and upskilling programs for entire communities.”
In the US alone, about 26 million people have filed for unemployment in the past five weeks amid stay-at-home orders.
Through the Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative, governments will be able to provide unemployed workers, many of whom lack financial resources, with job-relevant online learning.
The 3,800 courses on Coursera, covering critical business, technology, and data science skills, are taught by some of the world’s leading universities like the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Duke University, University of Michigan, Yale University, and more.
The initiative also includes Professional Certificates from industry educators like the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, designed specifically to train people for high-demand jobs. The workforce initiative is part of the Coursera for Government offering, which was launched in 2017 to equip government employees and citizens with in-demand skills.
Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda in an interview with Forbes said, “Coursera, along with its community of partners, is ready to serve the millions of workers who have lost their jobs and are going to have a hard time returning in a slow economy.”
According to the company, state agencies in some US states like Arizona, Illinois, and Oklahoma will be the first to make the courses available while some countries around the world like the governments of Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Malaysia, Panama, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan also are participating.
Coursera believes more government agencies will join the program in the coming weeks.
