- In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Microsoft announced a partnership with LinkedIn and GitHub to open up access to online digital skills.
- The plan at the time was to reach 25 million people in total over the coming years.
- Now the next phase in the partnership has been announced, targeting 10 million people.
During the height of the pandemic, and with people turning to online solutions in order to get around lockdown restrictions, Microsoft decided to partner with LinkedIn and GitHub in order to make the online courses more accessible. This partnership focused on in-demand digital skills in particular, with the aim of reaching 25 million people over the next few years.
Now the next phase in the partnership has been announced with the goal of reaching 10 million people in mind.
This as the next step in the Skills for Jobs programme is providing free access to 350 courses and six new Career Essentials Certificates for six of the most in-demand jobs in the digital economy.
“Microsoft and LinkedIn will also be offering 50,000 LinkedIn Learning scholarships to help people get ahead in their skilling journey. By 2025, Microsoft will help train and certify 10 million people with skills for in demand jobs. This launch builds on the Global Skills Initiative, which helped 80 million jobseekers around the world access digital skilling resources,” the pair explained in a press release sent to Hypertext.
“Locally, the Global Skills initiative has helped over 680 000 people gain access to digital skills with more than 30 000 learning paths completed since July 2020, including 460 professional Microsoft certifications obtained. Certifications included Azure Fundamentals, Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate, Power BI Analyst Associate, Microsoft Azure Developer Associate, and Fundamentals,” the companies added.
As for the learning paths that have proved most popular to date, Microsoft says that Get Started with Artificial Intelligence, Create Powerapps, Create Use Analytics Reports, M365 Manage Team Collaboration, and Power Platform Fundamentals saw plenty of interest to date. On the LinkedIn side of things, learning courses which garnered the most interest were project manager, sales development, customer service, critical soft skills, and data analyst.
Using data from LinkedIn and the Burning Glass Institute, Microsoft says it analysed job listings to determine six of the roles in greatest demand. These are:
- Administrative professional,
- Project manager,
- Business analyst,
- Systems administrator,
- Software developer,
- Data analyst.
The new courses and certificates in this next phase will be offered in seven languages – English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese – the company adds.
“All courses are available on LinkedIn at opportunity.linkedin.com. In addition, Microsoft-developed courses are also available on Microsoft Community Training (MCT) and in downloadable format for use on other Learning Management Systems (LMS) for nonprofit partners,” the release concludes.
