Coursera survey shows high demand for professional certificates among Indian employers and students

New Delhi: Responding to a competitive, fast-changing labor market, both students and employers are placing an increasing premium on the value of professional certificates. The results, released today in Coursera’s Higher Education to Employment Survey, reflect the extent to which skills-first credentials are influencing both the university choices made by students, and employer hiring decisions.

Coursera, an online learning platform supporting more than 118 million registered learners across the world, surveyed nearly 5,000 students and employers across 11 countries—Australia, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (U.S.. The survey report, conducted in collaboration with the market research firms, Dynata and Repdata, explores the motivations, needs, and challenges of both students pursuing a degree and employers who seek to hire them.

Higher Education to Employment Survey Report: Indian highlights:

• 96% of surveyed Indian students (versus 90% of students worldwide) believe that earning a professional certificate will help them stand out to employers and get a job after graduation
• 92% of surveyed employers in India (versus 88% globally) believe that a professional certification strengthens a candidate’s job application, demonstrating a widespread preference for credentials that demonstrate specific professional skills
• 91% of surveyed Indian students believe that a professional certificate will help them succeed in their job after they are hired (compared to a global average of 86%)
• Employers in India place a higher value on professional certificates (85%) when making hiring decisions than their counterparts in Australia, the UK, Germany, and France (71%), and also higher than the global average (72%).

“Connecting skills-based learning and skills-based hiring can unlock opportunities for students while diversifying and expanding talent pipelines for employers”, said Raghav Gupta, Managing Director for India and APAC, Coursera. “Higher education institutions in India are enhancing their curricula by incorporating industry micro-credentials, boosting student recruitment and graduate employability. This industry-academia collaboration equips students with job-relevant skills and hands-on experience, giving them a head start as they enter the workforce after graduation.”

In May 2022, Coursera launched Career Academy to enable students to discover in-demand career paths and learn job-specific skills with industry microcredentials developed in collaboration with Google, IBM, Meta, and Intuit. These entry-level professional certificates, which offer applied skills training, are designed to nurture job-ready students, and more resilient higher education institutions.

As a result, Coursera is seeing universities and colleges around the world leverage entry-level professional certificates, also known as industry micro-credentials, and career-relevant skills training in their degree programs to improve student recruitment and graduate employability.

Higher education institutions in India including Lakshmi Narain College of Technology, KGiSL Educational Institutions, International Management Institute New Delhi, Chandigarh University, SGR Krishnammal College for Women, and RV Institute of Management, are leveraging industry microcredentials from Coursera to offer practical learning experience that pairs academic knowledge with the practical skills needed to succeed in a professional role.

Dr. Anuj Garg, Group Director of Career Services and Placements at LNCT said: “In an increasingly-competitive graduate labour market, preparing our students to thrive in the modern economy is a top institutional priority. Partnering with Coursera to offer Professional Certifications in computer programming, web development and data management ensures that LNCT’s graduates are equipped with the skills needed to be industry-ready from the moment they enter the workforce.”

Sahil Batra, Sr. Director, Team Enablement and Community Engagement, MTX Group Inc said: “Since we began supporting professional development for our team through Coursera – in key domains including data science, cloud, business and leadership – we have seen over 6000-course enrollments, with 25% being in Google’s Professional Certificates. The curated learning pathways have allowed our team to gain critical skills needed to provide high-impact consultancy driven by technology solutions and services for our clients.”

Coursera currently supports the skills development of 19 million learners in India, who are able to access 3,400+ Guided Projects, 5,400+ courses, 625+ Specializations, more than 125 Certificates (of which 30 are Entry-Level Professional Certificates), and 35+ degrees.