Coursera and PwC have joined hands to create a set of 5 courses, namely Specialization in Data Analytics and Presentation Skills, which can be applied to by anyone with or without any background in data analytics. The world’s largest education platform, Coursera and financial services major PwC, will be conducting 5 courses, which will have a Capstone project included, upon whose successful completion, will award the candidates with a Specialization Certification.
Under this partnership, PwC will offer a series of widely available courses for anyone who could benefit from learning more about business analytics. This collaboration will also allow PwC’s people to improve their internal learning and development. PwC is amongst one of the first professional services network to offer courses to their 208,000 employee strong workforce and to the general public on the Coursera platform. The Specialization includes five courses, viz., Data-driven Decision Making, Problem Solving with Excel, Data Visualization with Advanced Excel and Effective Business Presentations with PowerPoint. In order to earn a specialization certificate, learners are required to complete a final Capstone Project that involves analyzing a mock client problem and a data set to gain business insights, research the client’s domain area, and create recommendations and bring it all together in a recorded video presentation.
Rick Levin, the Founder CEO of Coursera, laid emphasis on the importance of the courses, saying “Coursera is devoted to helping individuals advance their careers with access to the best education institutions, and we’re excited to expand this work by providing courses from leading global employers like PwC. PwC has a unique understanding of exactly what employers are seeking in roles that require basic data analysis skills along with skills for how to communicate that data. We are delighted that PwC will now be able to help educate high potential people all around the world in these key skills through our platform.” Laying down the PwC perspective, was Agnes Hussherr, the Global Human Capital Leader, saying “Our collaboration with Coursera is about more than creating courses; it’s about helping people become more confident as they face the future,” and added, “We hope that we’ll play a part in building a generation of confident leaders who can inspire trust in others and be ready to solve the important problems faced by the businesses they lead.” The courses commence from August 22.
India will need 200,000 analytics professionals annually, over a period of 3 years, according to Teamlease. Considering that studies on Glassdoor have shown ‘Data Scientist’ as the ‘Best Job of the year’, the importance of these programs become paramount for making candidates industry ready.