Online courses are gaining popularity when it comes to reskilling and upskilling employees.Platforms such as Coursera, UpGrad and Udacity are witnessing 30-40 per cent growth in enrolments.

According to industry experts, the ever evolving job roles in the light of new age technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, big data and Internet of Things, require employees to constantly upgrade their skills.

High quality learning from some of the world class university is today available on a mobile phone or tablet at affordable rates. This has led to a rise in demand for such online courses, Raghav Gupta, director – India and APAC, Coursera, told BusinessLine .

Coursera has been adding close to 65,000 new learners every month. The company, which entered the segment with B2C (business-to-consumer) programmes, also rolled out B2B (business-to-business) courses two years back through tie ups with companies.

Growing demand

While blockchain, data science, ML, AI and deep learning are the most sought-after courses on such platforms, there is also a significant rise in demand for business management, personal leadership, marketing communication, financial management and business analytics.

Ishan Gupta, MD (India) Udacity, said “Contrary to popular perception, these technologies are going to make processes and people much more efficient,” said .

While the initial focus for most of these online education providers was on short-term courses of four-to-six weeks, they are now rolling out degree programmes spanning a year or two.

Corporates are also tying up with online platforms.

Deodutta Kurane, Group President and CHRO, Yes Bank, said it has collaborated with global universities and companies like Coursera to create flexible learning modules for its employees.

According to Vaishali Pathak, Group Function Head - Technical Learning, Tech Mahindra, it works with online learning platforms such as Pluralsight and edX.org to reskill its employees The 3-15 week courses are curated jointly.

According to Neeti Sharma, senior VP, TeamLease Services, most of the courses offered by these online platforms are modular in nature and offer ‘good content’ and have been gaining traction recently.

Mayank Kumar, co-founder and MD, UpGrad said there is also a lot of cross skilling happening with millennials (age group of 25-35 years) open to exploring new job roles across different sectors. It currently offers 6-11 months courses, and will also roll out job-oriented post graduate programmes.

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