Nigeria ranks 105th in Coursera’s global skills proficiency 2024

Digital skills training platform, Coursera, has ranked Nigeria 105 out of 109 countries in its Global Skills Proficiency report 2024 just released.

According to Coursera, countries are ranked based on the performance of learners on the platform and key economic indices. The company said it first measures each learner’s proficiency in each skill, then aggregates those proficiencies to compute statistics like the country’s skill proficiency in a particular skill.

It added that the insights for the 2024 ranking were drawn from 148 million learners on the platform, out of which 2.4 million are Nigerians.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria occupied the 12th position out of the 13 countries featured in the global ranking, the last in Africa being Somalia, which occupied 107th position on the global table.

The skills Nigerians are learning

Coursera disclosed that Nigerians on the platform are learning technical skills like SQL and HTML/ CSS, as well as business skills like advertising and business communication.

“Top target roles learners prepare for span engineering and marketing, including cloud security engineer, product marketing manager, and e-commerce analyst.

“However, with only one in 10 workers holding positions that require advanced skill levels, these skill sets are crucial in addressing Nigeria’s youth unemployment rate, which stands at 53.4%,” it stated.

Coursera added that 76% of learners from Nigeria are accessing courses on mobile devices as they gravitate toward flexible, on-the-go learning.

Digital skills gap in Africa

The report noted the lagging skill rankings of most countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region indicates a need to focus on developing a skilled young workforce.

“With 230 million digital jobs projected by 2030, investing in accessible, job-relevant learning is crucial. Enabling further internet access will be critical to skills development, as 75% of Africa’s internet traffic comes from smartphones,” the report stated.

According to Coursera, the region also needs to address the gender gap in online learning, with only 36% of learners being women despite comprising 50.2% of the working-age population. It also calls for the transformation of education systems in the region to update curricula, invest in teacher training, and increase education funding.

What you should know

Against the backdrop of the existence of skill gap in Nigeria, the Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy last year launched what it called the 3 Million Technical Training programme (3MTT).

The programme aims to equip three million Nigerians with technical skills over the next three years. According to the Communications Minister, Dr. Bosun Tijani, the 3MTT program is aimed at building Nigeria’s technical talent backbone to power its digital economy and position Nigeria as a net talent exporter.

Some of the skills Nigerians are being trained on include skills that utilise technology to enhance various roles without directly involving tech creation. These include Digital Marketing, Project Management Software, Cloud Platforms Navigation, Data Analysis and Visualisation, Digital Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), CRM Management, Accounting Software, Graphics Design, and UX/UI Design, among several others.