Coursera Extends Free Access to Courses for Ukrainian Higher Education Institutions

Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine is extending its partnership with Coursera  tproviding free access to Coursera for Campus to all Ukrainian higher education institutions and their students until the end of 2023.

The partnership began in March 2022 as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Since then, Coursera has worked closely with the Ministry of Education and Science to create learning programs for 283 Ukrainian universities and higher education institutions, offering students and faculty members unlimited access to more than 5,500 courses and 3,400 guided projects. To date, approximately 40,000 Ukrainian learners have benefitted from the free online tuition, taking part in more than 100,000 courses.

For Maksym Natalchuk, a graduate in IT from Kyiv Polytechnic, the war left him without a job. Maksym turned to online learning to gain skills for roles that were in high demand, studying 8-12 hours a day for four months, earning 16 professional certificates in the process and going on to land his dream job as a data analyst at an international consultancy. Maksym says “In March 2022 I signed up for Google's data analysis certification on the Coursera platform and, since then, I’ve been learning online every day”.

The war has disrupted thousands of students across the country, such as Anastasia Kot, a graduate from T.G. Shevchenko Chernihiv Collegium National University, whose dreams of completing her Masters were cut short by the violence, forcing her to leave Ukraine to live with her brother in Poland. Anastasia has continued her learning online, not only to gain new qualifications but also to provide a mental distraction from the conflict back home. “Coursera helps distract me, gets me back into the flow of learning, and gives me strength,” says Anastasia.

Since the invasion, around 5 million jobs have been lost in Ukraine. Remarkably, the I.T. industry has remained extremely resistant to the disruption. Unsurprisingly then, Ukrainian students have gravitated towards taking digital and technical courses online. Seven out of the top 10 most popular courses are related to digital and data science skills:

• English for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (University of Pennsylvania)
• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) (University of Michigan)
• Foundations of Project Management(Google)
• Neural Networks and Deep Learning(DeepLearning.AI)
• Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design (Google)
• English for Career Development (University of Pennsylvania)
• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for Web Developers (Johns Hopkins University)
• Foundations: Data, Data, Everywhere (Google)
• SQL for Data Science(University of California)
• Introduction to Front-End Development (Meta)

How to sign up and have access to courses here.

Thanks Coursera for supporting Ukrainian students and educators and for remaining committed to empowering learners with vital skills for their future success, fostering human potential, and ultimately supporting the growth of Ukraine's burgeoning digital economy.