Coursera has released its Global Skills Report 2023, showing Nigeria as the lowest in terms of skill proficiency globally.
Out of 100 countries ranked by Coursera for 2023, Nigeria occupied the bottom of the table at 100th position.
To arrive at the skill proficiency ranking, Coursera said it first measured the skill proficiency of each learner in each skill available on the platform. It then aggregates those proficiencies to compute insights.
For example, a country’s proficiency in a particular skill is an average of all learners’ skill scores in that country. Coursera then compares these proficiency levels against one another by using percentile rankings.
A country at 100% ranks at the top of the 100 countries featured in the report, while a country at 0% is at the bottom.
Limitation of the data
Coursera, however, noted that while the skill proficiencies of learners in countries correlate with positive economic indicators, they are not necessarily representative of a population within a country, given that this data can only surface trends among those who are registered learners on Coursera.
It added that an individual’s ability to access and use Coursera is influenced by many factors, including internet infrastructure, educational background or past training, and local culture or norms.
“We also use learner profile data such as gender, age, and location. The results may also be influenced by local economic or social conditions. For example, economic downturns sometimes drive learners to Coursera. Our industry partnerships also sometimes quickly bring thousands of new learners onto the platform. In general, our goal is to objectively represent what is happening across the Coursera ecosystem,” Coursera said in the report.
The company added that sometimes, its results capture what is happening across an entire economy, while other times, the demographics and behaviour of Coursera learners mean that some results should not be extrapolated or interpreted as representing broad populations.
Growth in enrollments
Despite ranking lowest among countries using the platform for skills acquisition, the report shows that 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, highlighting strong momentum among learners to prepare for in-demand digital roles.
Business skills are the greatest strength among learners, while technology and data science mark the greatest development opportunities. As of December 2023, the report shows that 1.7 million Nigerians were learning on the platform.
It further revealed that 79% of the Nigerian learners are leaning on mobile while 33% of them are women.
