Coursera CEO: ‘Businesses, Schools Will Never be the Same’

Rabat – While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought much pain and much change to humanity in a short period of time, many have argued that the pandemic has been a key catalyzer for positive change as it has accelerated e-learning worldwide, making education accessible to all those who have access to stable internet and an electronic device.

In an interview with Morocco World News, the CEO of Coursera Jeff Maggioncalda discussed the impact of the ongoing pandemic on boosting e-learning worldwide and in Morocco, while addressing his company’s plans to reinforce its partnerships in the North African country in an effort to address local challenges.

As many countries have over the past two years seen numerous lockdowns that disrupted learning and work, Maggioncalda says that “businesses are increasingly doing work online and schools are increasingly making learning available online.”

E-learning in the post-covid era

With the COVID-19 pandemic paving the way for more online learning and remote working opportunities, Edtech solutions have gradually gained more popularity among youth with major players such as Coursera recording a 22% year-on-year revenue growth in the second quarter of 2022 with total revenues estimated at $124.8 million.

While Coursera continues to expand its partnerships with businesses, governments, and academic institutions worldwide, the digital company is eyeing expansion into emerging markets such as the Middle East and North Africa, with Morocco being one of the key partners.

Coursera’s “nomadic CEO” informed MWN on Tuesday that he is leading a global tour to reinforce existing partnerships and establish new ones with public and private education stakeholders as well as businesses to integrate Coursera courses into their training programs.

Maggioncalda stopped in Casablanca and Rabat earlier this week to meet local stakeholders before moving on to Ankara on Wednesday morning and later to Istanbul. The tour includes additional visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, India, and Singapore.

As Millennials are being considered the “job-hopping generation” and Gen Z are joining the wave, new workplace norms are emerging and are calling for lifelong learning. This represents unprecedented growth opportunities for Coursera and its competitors.

“As a result of COVID, everybody realizes that there’s a place for online learning, even for students who are on campus [and] working adults who want to switch careers and learn new skills,” the CEO said.

Building partnerships

In Morocco, Coursera serves 600,000 people and holds strategic partnerships with 10-20 Moroccan private and public universities that have integrated the platform’s online courses into their degree programs.

Given that “partnerships are very important” for Coursera, Maggioncalda said that “It’s really valuable to give individuals direct access to our website, but so many people are served through institutions.”

“So we work together with the Ministry of Education in Morocco to facilitate agreements with a number of public and private universities to agree to integrate Coursera content into their curriculum,” the CEO said as he stressed that these institutional partnerships benefit the company’s growth strategy and serve learners.

As the “e-learning market has moved very, very quickly,” says Coursera’s CEO, “it’s very difficult to predict where it’s going to go.”

In Morocco, however, the edtech market remains in its early stages with few startups operating in the market including SmartProf and Kezakoo.

Addressing learning difficulties in Morocco

On March 13, 2020, Morocco suspended all education activities across the country to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus. This preventive measure disturbed the education of millions of Moroccan students. By April 2020, 1.6 billion students worldwide had their schools, from kindergartens to colleges, closed and had to study online, says UNESCO.

In response to the unprecedented situation, Moroccan public and private schools adopted e-learning tools and common platforms such as WhatsApp and Zoom to ensure the continuity of courses, particularly for those expected to take regional or national exams at the end of the year. The Moroccan government further provided recorded classes on national TV to reach students who do not have access to stable internet.

While these urgent measures have avoided a complete shutdown of the educational system, many students and parents have argued that these tools were not enough to replace the experience of learning in a physical classroom.

However, these contexts are expected to become the new norm and Morocco has to catch up in not only improving the quality and relevance of its curriculum, but also digitizing its learning materials in an effort to equip young generations with skills required in the global job market.

These points were notably discussed in Morocco’s recently adopted reform strategy for education.

While doubts about the potential success of newly established education reforms persist, the current Moroccan government appears to give increasing importance to the teaching of foreign languages and the introduction of innovative learning approaches in classrooms.

However, beyond the institutional reforms, Moroccans, particularly those belonging to middle and upper social classes, are resorting to digital learning platforms to develop their language and human skills.

“Two of the top ten courses in Morocco are language courses, one in English and one teaching French,” Maggioncalda told MWN, adding “We find that human skills courses, which is communication, interpersonal, team dynamics, [have] a higher popularity in Morocco than in the rest of the world.”

Besides language and skills training, Coursera courses in artificial intelligence, deep learning, data science, and software engineering enjoy wide popularity in Morocco, says the CEO.

Language Barrier?

While most of Coursera’s teaching material originates from Western universities with English-speaking universities dominating the list, Maggioncalda said “We have over 500 courses that are created in Arabic with Arabic partners, and we translated more than 3000 courses in Arabic as well.”

With the support and development of machine learning, the “accessibility of languages will go up very much,” the CEO said as he noted that reading translated subtitles while listening to the content in the original language is “a way to learn a second language.”

As Coursera seeks to make opportunities equally distributed for all in the post-pandemic era, the UN reports that more than a third of the world’s population has never used the internet.

In Morocco alone, some communities living in remote areas do not have reliable access to electricity or the internet. And those communities are the ones most in need of inclusive education and work opportunities.