Telangana, Odisha tie-up with Coursera to provide free courses to 1 lakh unemployed youth during COVID-19

Odisha Skills Development Authority and Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) have both partnered with Coursera – an online learning platform — to train one lakh unemployed youth during the COVID-19 crisis. Under the two different tie-ups, both states will train 50,000 youth each.

The partnerships are part of Coursera’s global roll-out of the Workforce Recovery Initiative, where any state and country can provide unemployed workers with free access to online learning. TASK is making 3,800 courses on Coursera available to 50,000 unemployed youths across the state.

The programme aims to build in-demand skills including data science, cloud computing, and the Internet of things (IoT) while also offering professional certificates such as the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, designed to train people with no



tech background for high-demand jobs.

Learners can enroll in the courses offered through the initiative by September 30, 2020, and will have access until the end of the year to complete the courses.

“The present pandemic induced slowdown should be seen as an opportunity and used effectively by students, graduates seeking jobs as well as professionals who are between jobs, to skill themselves in areas that are less likely to be impacted by a crisis of this nature,” said Shrikant Sinha, CEO, TASK.

“Youth unemployment is a major challenge around the world and the pandemic made it worse,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO Coursera. “We are honored to partner with the state governments in its efforts to transform the state into a global talent hub by providing broad-based skilling opportunities to its youth.”