Nigeria performed a lot poorer than expected in global ranking of online professional certification skill proficiency measured by Coursera, one of the world’s largest online skills platforms.
In its 2023 Global Skills Report published last week, Coursera, which is popular in Nigeria and has about 124 million learners worldwide, evaluated countries’ skill proficiency in business, technology and data science, using the performance of students from those nations.
Nigeria came 100th of 100 countries measured. The company said the three fields were the most popular amongst learners and hiring companies.
On a positive note, the report showed a surge in Africans enrolling for online professional development certifications, marking an impressive 69% growth rate, surpassing other regions.
This trend gains significance given Africa’s growing youth population and the cost of higher education.
Between 2019 and 2023, approximately 4.9 million individuals from sub-Saharan Africa, with a median age of 34, registered for Coursera courses.
Students in the region were especially strong in business, ranking second globally, with learners in Botswana leading the way, followed by Rwanda. Cameroon led in technology, while Zambia lea in data science.
Nigerian highlights
To benchmark skill proficiency at the country level, Coursera said it first measured the skill proficiency of each learner in each skill.
It then aggregated those proficiencies to compute insights. A country’s proficiency in a particular skill is an average of all learners’ skill scores in that country.
“We then compare these proficiency levels against one another by using percentile rankings. A country that is at 100% ranks at the top of the 100 countries featured in this report, while a country at 0% is at the bottom,” Coursera said.
Switzerland took the top global spot. Botswana, the best in Africa, took 29th globally.
The platform said it has 1.7 million students in Nigeria with a median age of 33 years.
Learners in Nigeria exhibit the fourth-highest year-on-year growth rate for professional certificates enrollments in the world and the third-highest number of overall enrollments, it said.
“Business skills are the greatest strength among learners, while technology and data science mark the greatest opportunities for development,” it said of Nigeria.
Nigeria took 76th in Business, 99th in Data Science and 100th in Technology.
Some of its poorest performances were in sub-fields such as Machine Learning (1th) and Operating System (1%). For context, South Africa score for Machine Learning is 21%.
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