The Ghana Library Authority (GhLA) has rolled out an online learning project for skills acquisition and personal development as part of its strategy to make 2020 a year of learning.

Dubbed: “Read2skill”, the project seeks to afford Ghanaians the opportunity to undertake courses on the world’s largest open learning platform, Udemy.

Commonwealth of Learning

The project, which is in partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), is offering full scholarship to 1,000 Ghanaians through a competitive application process.

The CoL is the world’s only inter-governmental organisation solely concerned with the promotion and development of distance education and open learning.

Deadline and courses

Interested Ghanaians have between yesterday, January 6, 2020 and January 31, 2020 to visit the website: ghanalibrary.org/read2skill to take advantage of the project to enhance their skills.

Successful applicants will have the option to study courses in subject areas such as Data Science, Cloud Computing, Project Management, Information Technology Operations, Design, Finance and Accounting, Human Resource, Leadership and Management, Office Productivity, as well as Marketing and Sales.

Interview

Briefing the Daily Graphic in an interview after the launch of the project in Accra yesterday, the Executive Director of the GhLA, Mr Hayford Siaw, explained that Ghana was part of four countries in the Commonwealth to benefit from the partnership.

The other countries to benefit from the partnership, he said, were Kenya, Rwanda and Bangladesh.

“The world’s largest online platform, Udemy, has been engaged by the CoL to collaborate with the GhLA to deliver these courses. Udemy has more than 30 million students and 50,000 instructors teaching courses in over 60 languages,” he explained.

Objective

Mr Siaw added that the objective of the project was to provide a platform for self-paced learning for skills enhancement, build the human capital capacity of target groups to use remote learning and also prepare candidates for the job market or self-employment.

“This offer is open to any Ghanaian above 15 years who wants to acquire skills through online learning. This includes unemployed graduates in search of skills, informal and formal sector employees, professionals, high school graduates and university students,” he said.

Unique opportunity

“The opportunity, I must say, is a unique one, because only four Commonwealth countries are benefiting from it,” he explained.

He gave an assurance that the GhLA would ensure fairness and put stringent measures in place to make sure that applicants for Ghana’s slot were selected through a “very competitive process”.

Application process

Taking the Daily Graphic through the application process, Mr Siaw explained that a person who visited ghanalibrary.org/read2skill would have to select ‘click to apply’, “and once access is granted, there is an application form that must be filled with correct details, especially your email address, since that will be used to invite you to take up the course. After filling the necessary details, you submit your forms”.

“Once you submit your application details, your job is done. Kindly wait for an invite from the GhLA. You can begin learning on Udemy once you accept the invitation,” he said.

credit:graphic.com.gh