Over 30,000 Ghanaians apply to study online with e-learning project

Ghana Library Authority has secured additional 1000 scholarship slots with funding support from Commonwealth of Learning, bringing its total award to Ghanaians to 2000, the largest among the four nations in the commonwealth benefiting from the partnership.

The e-learning project, dubbed Read2Skill launched on 6th January 2020 was initially meant to offer only one thousand scholarships for Ghanaians to undertake courses on the world largest open learning platform, Udemy.

The Executive Director of Ghana Library Authority, Hayford Siaw explained that seeking for additional scholarships was a result of the enthusiasm and massive interest expressed by Ghanaians in the project.

“We received 31,574 applications from all 16 regions of Ghana as at the end January competing for just 1000 scholarship slots, if we had not negotiated for more, then, clearly you can see that many Ghanaians would be denied access to this opportunity and so what we did was to engage our partners to extend the opportunity for more Ghanaians.”

Mr. Siaw, however, indicated that they are not accepting new applications. The additional one thousand slots will be given to applicants from the remaining applications.

Among the total number of applications, the Greater Accra region recorded the highest with 13,895 applicants while Savannah region recorded the lowest with 106 applications.

According to the statistics, more males applied for the e-learning programme as compared to females. In the Greater Accra Region, for instance, 9295 out 13,895 were males whereas the remaining 4600 were females.

Out of the many courses available on Udemy, majority of the applicants selected Project Management and Operations as their preferred course with Procurement being the least preferred.

The successful candidates will earn certification upon completion of any of the courses on offer and have till the end of October 2020 to enrol on as many courses as possible.

Online courses available on Read2Skill programme includes, but not limited to; Data Science, Cloud Computing, Project Management, IT Operations, Design, Finance and Accounting, Human Resource, Leadership and Management and Office Productivity.