Coursera Discusses the Digital Transformation of Higher Education and the Influence of COVID-19 at EdTechX
Coursera, a leading company within the EdTech space, spoke at the EdTechX Online Summit on their response to COVID-19 and its impact on High Education.
Coursera partners with universities around the world providing more than 4000 courses to learners around the world. Specifically in Europe, Coursera has partnered by a number of leading universities to provide 1,100+ courses. They are also working with industry partners who provide courses on Coursera specific to certain skills and tools. This particular catalogue of courses linked with industry spans many disciplines including data science, health and arts and humanities. There are now 140,000+ lecture videos and 370,000 assessments with the courses coming from both Universities and industry partners.
On March 4, UNESCO highlighted that “The global scale and speed of current education disruption is unparalleled” with 364 million students affected and 14 countrywide school closures. Fast forward a few weeks to April 20 and the numbers jumped to 1.6 billion students affected and 191 countries closing all their schools. This created a surge in online learning. Coursera reached more than 57m global learners and across every region there was a surge in enrollments. The demand for online learning also spread beyond popular topic choice, like computer science and business, to topics that reflected personal development, life sciences, arts and humanities and social sciences.
On 12th March, Coursera for Campus was offered as a free resource to any college or university affected by COVID-19 around the world. This free access will be available until the end of 2020. Since the announcement, Coursera received over 22,000 enquiries from 6,800+ institutions. Over 7,100 courses were launched with 500,000 students registered and 1,800,000 courses enrolled. This resource became incredibly useful for universities who needed to move online quickly and did not have the resources, infrastructure or funds to make the move themselves.
COVID-19 has accelerated change in Higher Education and Jeff Maggioncalda shared six predictions of what the future in higher education will look like as COVID-19 continues to influence the adoption of new technologies and learning initiative.
Firstly, there will be an increase in blended classrooms. As September draws closer there will be a more rapid shift to this style of learning and teaching. Campuses will open, however, the extent to which they will open remains unknown and there will perhaps not be all students on campus. Likewise, there may also be Professors who will or will not be on campus for a variety of reasons.
Secondly, more online courses and credentials will be available. There will be an increasing number of universities who will not only move their courses online but include full credentials like Master Degrees, Bachelors and other certificates.
In addition, there is now an added pressure on tuition fees. As students realise they will not receive the full campus experience, and there is an environment with higher unemployment and fewer vacancies, universities will have to think about how they can deliver their tuition at a lower cost.
There will also be the need for job-relevant education with content and credentials specific to particular skills. As it may become more challenging to find work post studying, students will likely put a higher premium on the higher education that will make them job-ready. Therefore, there will be a need for more hands-on learning and projects focused on specific software tools that will make them more job qualified.
Not surprisingly, lifelong learning at work will still be prevalent. As we will spend most of our lives working, this will be where learning will happen also. In addition to helping individuals with skill development, there is also the need to help facilitate the learning within the institutions.
Finally, it is possible that the pandemic will continue to occur in waves, with many continuing to be learning and working from home. There will be a need for flexible, modular and stackable content where you can earn your degree in smaller bitesize pieces.
There is also the impact of COVID-19 on unemployment and it’s link to automation. The graph below, taken from Mckinsey & Co (2018), shows job roles at risk due to automation and the related typical education level. There is a link between the roles with no formal education requirements and the risk of job automation.
Similarly, jobs affected most by COVID-19 are also low skilled, front line or blue-collar jobs held by workers without a formal education.
High-quality education is important to mitigate the disparities and inequalities emerging and now being accelerated due firstly to technology and now to COVID-19. In total, the International Labour Organisation estimates 305 million jobs at risk due to COVID-19.
On 24th April, Coursera announced the Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative. Coursera began providing free access to its catalogue of courses to displaced workers by partnering with federal, state and local governments. The goal is to provide re-skilling or u-skilling opportunities out of work due to COVID-19. 3800 courses will be available free of charge until the end of 2020. Since the initiative was launched, 160+ inquires have been made from over 45 countries around the world. over 40 programmes have launched helping 570+ displaced workers.
If you are interested in learning more about these initiatives, you can learn about Coursera for Campus and Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative here.
