Online digital learning platform, Coursera has announced a new partnership with the Nigerian government which will see the platform train about 24,000 Nigerians on digital skills. While making the announcement, the Minister of Communications & Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami noted that the aim of the training is to “champion a paradigm shift of prioritizing hard, soft and social skills over theory“.
Coursera’s training also aims to further the federal government’s digital capacity-building initiative as it has also partnered to provide some selected learners at the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA with access to world-class educational content from top universities and industry leaders.
Some of the top institutions include Yale, Meta, Google, and IBM and this partnership with Nigeria is Coursera’s first collaboration and government partnership with the country.
The partnership also gives NITDA the opportunity to offer 10 percent of the licences secured from the deal to unemployed youth, a move which will equip them with superlative tech skills such as data analysis, cybersecurity, machine learning, and software engineering.
Pantami further noted that the FG had also set up a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with global tech giant, Microsoft to train five million Nigerians in various fields of technology.
This he said, was part of the government’s efforts to fulfil the Nigeria Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS) laid down requirements for digital transformation.
The minister also advised the digital learning platform to extend its presence in Nigeria while noting its existing partnership with a Nigerian private university, Covenant university.
Pantami further added that for Coursera to impact learners with its platform, it should engage more with Nigerian academic institutions by targeting at least one, in each geo-political zone in other to bring their expertise to bear within the identified environments.
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