Workforce Readiness

New Coursera Career Academy Helps Institutions Upskill Their Learners

• By Rhea Kelly
• 05/04/22

Online learning platform Coursera has introduced Career Academy, an offering that allows institutions to bundle self-paced online courses and career resources to help students gain in-demand skills for the workforce. Students can explore career options across multiple industries, review the skill requirements of a particular job, and enroll in a certificate program and hands-on projects that are mapped to that role.

The Career Academy combines several components:

• Professional Certificates, providing entry-level job training from industry experts such as Google, IBM, Meta and others. Each certificate comprises a series of online courses that can be completed in six to eight months on average, with no degree or prior experience required;
• Guided Projects, hands-on tutorials for building job-relevant skills in under two hours; and
• An overview of common job titles, skill requirements and average regionalized salary (where available) to help learners explore potential career paths.

A number of institutions have piloted the Career Academy with students, including Hawaii Pacific University, University of North Texas, University of Arizona, North Central Texas College, and Alamo Colleges District.

"Coursera's Career Academy is helping Hawaii Pacific University fulfill its mission to offer students a practical, innovative, and experiential education, with in-demand skills training and certificates from top companies like Google and IBM that complement our classroom content and offer students pathways to meaningful employment opportunities," commented Mark Rosenbaum, dean of the College of Business at Hawaii Pacific University, in a statement. "As a dean, I am assured that Career Academy participants are obtaining skills that they desire and that are related to current job openings. The student response has been overwhelmingly positive."

"With online learning, anyone, anywhere has more equal access to learning opportunities. And with remote work, anyone, anywhere has more equal access to job opportunities," wrote Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda, in a company blog post. "We are offering Career Academy to help realize the promise of this new era, where the combination of online learning and remote work creates greater access to both educational opportunity and economic opportunity. People often say, 'Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.' We believe that Career Academy will be a major step in creating more equal opportunity for all."

For more information, visit the Coursera blog.