By Raghav Gupta, Managing Director, India and APAC, Coursera
India will add a whopping 101 million working age people to its workforce by 2030. Ensuring students get a relevant education and develop skills that prepare them for future jobs will be “the biggest enabler” to sustain economic growth and realize the country’s demographic dividend. There’s a massive opportunity ahead, and Indian universities are responding with agility to prepare their students for emerging, high-demand jobs in Digital India.
Higher education institutions are leveraging Coursera for Campus (C4C) to identify new pathways into well-paying digital jobs, improve graduate employability and empower faculty to upgrade their skills. A significant 40% of all campus learners on Coursera come from India. The momentum is spreading to India’s non-metro cities, where institutions across the country are using online learning to remove barriers to access and opportunity for India’s youth at scale, demonstrating the potential to level the playing field for students. Many of the changes on the ground reflect India’s evolving priorities for higher education, and are in-line with the National Education Policy’s focus on ‘equitable and inclusive learning’ and greater access to high-quality education.
Indian universities & colleges are looking at new approaches to give their students an edge in the job market. Here are four ways we are seeing colleges in India leverage C4C to increase student enrollments, better align with industry, and deliver stronger outcomes:
1) SkillSets and Professional Certificates are making students job-ready
Skills are changing rapidly in India’s fast-growing digital economy. SkillSets on Coursera are enabling institutions to keep pace with this change by linking academic curricula to the current needs of employers. Colleges are also turning students job-ready faster by offering industry-recognized Professional Certificates, from C4C’s Career Academy. Such ‘role-specific’ training from industry leaders like Google, IBM and Meta is equipping students for entry-level digital skills employers are looking for.
- KGiSL Educational Institutions in Tamil Nadu has strategically adopted SkillSets for their Engineering and Science students, enhancing employability outcomes by giving them an edge in sought-after areas like Mobile App Development, Web Development, Python, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Networking, Cybersecurity, and Cloud Computing.
- Lakshmi Narain College of Technology, in Madhya Pradesh, is helping students become industry-ready as soon as they graduate. With strong adoption of Professional Certifications and Specializations in the domains of computer programming, web development and data management, students at this technical institute have completed 200+ certifications in four months alone.
- Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (Deemed University) in Patiala, Punjab, is leveraging SkillSets to prepare students for high-demand Data Science careers, giving them access to relevant data science Specializations, Professional Certifications and Guided Projects on Coursera.
- International Management Institute in New Delhi aims to leverage SkillSets to hit multiple goals, including integrating technical learning in MBA for the institute’s management education, and boosting foundational skills to support internships and placements.
2) Empowering students with multi-disciplinary skills to open multiple career path
Many C4C partners are now encouraging and incorporating multi-disciplinary skill development that can equip students to go down multiple career paths once they enter the workforce.
- Chandigarh University is helping Engineering students hone a variety of skills, including human skills, to supplement their technical knowledge. For electives in the first year, students have a choice of general proficiency courses ranging from ‘Virtual Reality,’ to ‘Teamwork’ and Guided Projects on Coursera. Students are clearly embracing this opportunity, with the university closing 17,000+ certifications within five months of the program launching.
- SGT University, in Haryana, is leveraging C4C to reward and encourage meritorious students to build multidisciplinary and transferable future skills
- Shillong’s Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU) is boosting its portfolio of programs for the sustainable development of Northeast India through C4C. MLCU, as the pioneers in the field of social work and counseling psychology in NE India, is leveraging the breadth of world-class learning choices on Coursera for its diverse study areas like gender, theology, commerce, management, sustainability and allied sciences.
3) Curriculum integration: Learning from the best in the world
We are seeing growing use cases for how Indian institutions are closing gaps in their curriculum quickly and at an unprecedented scale, through curriculum integration.
- Marwadi University in Rajkot, Gujarat, is integrating hybrid learning to elevate curricula and its instructional delivery. The integration with C4C content is delivering strong results. Students have clocked more than 22,500 hours of learning in the past 9 months and completed over 5,300 certificates in fields like Management, Engineering, Computer Applications, and Pharmacy. The university is also enabling students to gain hands-on learning experience and boost applied skills through Guided Projects on Coursera.
- C4C is paving the way at RV Institute of Management (an autonomous Institution of Excellence), in Bangalore, to provide “unlimited open learning” opportunities as the institutes align their focus to India’s National Education Policy.
- CVM University, in Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, has opened up campus-wide access to Coursera content across various disciplines, with focus on emerging tech.
- Karnavati University, in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, known for its Design and Law offerings, has curated learning choices for students from Coursera’s comprehensive, unparalleled catalog of global, high-quality content.
- PSGR Krishnammal College for Women in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu is an NIRF-ranked All-Women’s Institute committed to empowering young women to become successful in their careers. The institution is integrating industry-aligned Coursera content into their curriculum for programs across Management, Arts and Sciences.
4) Enabling faculty upskilling
Empowering teachers to teach the next generation of Indian students is a cornerstone of India’s higher education reforms. Through C4C, colleges are meeting the diverse learning needs of faculty members across disciplines, with the required depth and breadth of learning.
- As part of its partnership with C4C, Nitte (Deemed to be University), in Mangalore, Karnataka, is enabling 250+ faculty members across schools to upskill, from Medical and Dental to Science, Physiotherapy, Pharmacy and Engineering. Learning is organized according to four faculty development themes: Technology for Education, Research and Scholarship, Civic Responsibilities and Personal Development. Upskilling on Coursera has been integrated into the faculty appraisal system at Nitte.
- SGT University has strengthened its focus on upskilling faculty members in emerging skills like digital teaching and creating MOOCs, which is enabling them to create their own digital content.
As they make a world-class education accessible, universities & colleges in India are simultaneously narrowing skill gaps and enhancing student employability through Coursera for Campus. We are honoured to support our Campus partners for the next phase of growth, to deliver job-relevant learning to millions of students, positioning them for success in India’s young and competitive workforce.