App to offer free courses imparting enterprise skills
Did you know that there is an online learning and employment platform offering free courses that can boost your skills set, giving you an edge in the job market?
The app, Trace Academia, launched last month, is offering courses that impart entrepreneurship skills and soft skills. It employs an ‘edutainment’ approach with engaging digital interaction that encourages course completion.
The evolution of the working environment and the jobs of the future is moving closer toward a skills-based economy and further away from being defined by academic qualifications. According to the World Economic Forum, more than 1 billion jobs, almost one-third of all jobs worldwide, are likely to be transformed by technology in the next decade.
Global trends revolving around the development and adaptation of technology are changing the nature of work and the demand for skills over academic qualifications. To succeed in the labour market, one needs a cocktail of skills that include cognitive, socio-emotional, technical, and most important, digital skills.
Covid-19 pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic advanced the use of technology for education and has inadvertently helped more employers recognise the importance of skills over academic qualifications.
Kenya is a very youthful country, with those between 18 and 35 years making up approximately 75 percent of the country’s population, yet majority have no jobs. With the Recognition of Prior Learning scheme, the government can reduce the rate of unemployment by acknowledging skills learnt formally and informally as admissible for employment.
This is a win for skills-based educational applications such as Trace Academia, which use the mobile interface to transfer skills through theory and practical sessions.
“Skills-based learning applications provide a path for lifelong learning,” says Danny Mucira, Trace Eastern Africa managing director, adding that the future of work will be about holistic job skills.
“Companies want people with an eye for detail, creative problem-solving skills, a collaborative mindset and an ability to deal with ambiguity and complexity,” he adds.
The courses on this application are developed with leading brands and education experts as a bridge between industry, education, and entertainment.
Skills-based education
This leverages Trace's content creation expertise and makes learning fun and highly engaging. The mobile app will feature course content and features developed by Trace and a coalition of leading corporations and organisations such as Google, L’Oréal Foundation, and UNESCO.
Some of the key advantages of skills-based education are that the learner has flexibility and choice. Today, using spare time to learn is the key demand of the mobile education field.
The whole structure of learning apps depends on the individual where students control their learning with the help of assessments and hands-on projects.
“Skills are the currency of the future, and we know this. Our courses are designed for completion through highly engaging content that keeps the learner's attention. All our courses are certified by industry leaders, providing credibility and applicability and possibly the best thing about our app is that we connect successful learners to an ecosystem of employment enablers,” says Mr Mucira, adding that this generation requires an end to end solutions to become successful in the long run.
With such applications, learners can regulate how often they view and review content, thereby reducing the big gap of understanding faced in traditional academic environments.
Skills-based education
In skills-based learning apps, students are groomed to think beyond grades and acquire real-life skills and strive for leadership excellence. Skills-based education is more effective and creates purpose-driven candidates ripe for employment and entrepreneurship should they choose the latter.
“Learning apps provide the perfect mix of routine, values and opinions to form a solid foundation that promotes student empowerment and success in their chosen field,” says Mucira.
The app aims to impart employable skills to up to 25 million people by 2025.
Mucira observes that post-Covid-19, the skills-based economy will favour a workforce that understands the balance between academics and skills, and everyone can use such apps to break the cycle of unemployment.
Trace launched the Trace Academia learning app in April this year. It is available on all smartphones, PCs and Mac computers. The courses are free to take and data is zero-rated through Mobile Network Operator partnerships and reverse billing solutions. BY DAILY NATION
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