The pandemic has affected the livelihood of 2.7 billion workers globally. In India alone, according to data from the Centre for Monitoring Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate almost tripled in the week ended March 29 to 23.8% from 8.4% just a week ago.
During the pandemic outbreak, the majority of us are staying at home, where we’re working, learning, and/or teaching remotely. With people globally staying home, millions of them are signing up for free courses offered by the top universities.
Needless to say, self-isolation is boring. It is hounding in so many ways. It sometimes gives a feeling as if the virus has put the world on a pause. However, on the other hand, a lot of people are using this opportunity to acquire new or build up existing skill sets by taking the online courses.
Evidently, there is an upsurge in enrolments on the learning platforms such as Coursera, Edx, FutureLearn, and Udemy. A significant number of people are increasingly enrolling in social science, personal development, arts and humanities, and information technology. Coursera, for instance, saw 500,000 new enrolments in a course Science of Well Being over a single weekend.
Coursera offers courses, specializations, professional certificates, and full online degrees from top universities. Most of the courses are free of charge if you just audit them but you can’t get access to some graded assignments and won’t receive a course completion certificate. And, in response to the coronavirus, Coursera is taking a new initiative to assist countries, states, and cities reskill their unemployed workers to re-enter the workforce.
Today, we are proud to announce the Coursera Workforce Recovery Initiative to help governments worldwide provide unemployed workers 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. Federal, state, and local governments can sign up until September 30, 2020, and those enrolled by then can learn until the end of the year.
Finally, we’d recommend some more resources for you to learn from apart from the above-mentioned institutions:
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Harvard University is offering more than 50 courses including Computer Science, Social Science, Data Science, Humanities, Business, Health & Medicine, Mathematics, Programming, Education & Training are available. Visit: https://online-learning.
harvard.edu/catalog/free -
NASSCOM is offering the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) program that otherwise costs around Rs 6000 for free on the SkillUp Online platform. Visit: https://skillup.online/
courses/course-v1:NASSCOM+ FOUNDAI100+2019/about -
GreyAtom is offering two Data Science courses to upskill yourself during Covid19. Visit: https://greyatom.com/free-
online-data-science-courses -
Interested in Digital Marketing? Discover a range of free learning content designed to help grow your business or jumpstart your career. Visit: https://learndigital.
withgoogle.com/ digitalunlocked/courses -
Interested in Data Visualization with Tableau? This free beginner’s course on Data Visualization using Tableau consisting of 10 hours of video content, three quizzes, and one project is being offered for free by Great Learning. You will learn dashboard design, visual analytics, advanced mapping, and more… Visit: https://www.greatlearning.in/
academy/learn-for-free/ courses/data-visualization- using-tableau
This is a wonderful opportunity to skill up yourself. So do not let lockdown stop you from learning. The sky’s the limit. All the best!
Image credit: Pixabay.com
