Supporting student-centric Higher Education with industry microcredentials

Our institutions have spent the last two years attempting to adjust to the implications of generative AI for the ways in which we teach, learn, and work. Earlier this year, Coursera research indicated that learners worldwide had spent the year engaged in a rapid rush towards genAI literacy, with five enrolments every minute in Coursera’s courses in this domain so far in 2024. 

Generative AI’s affects all roles

This dramatic increase in enrolments in our genAI courses is a testament to learners realising that their skills base needs to change if they are to survive and thrive in the face of technological change. Generative AI’s power to affect all roles – irrespective of the educational level required to partake in them – means that we must collectively work to strengthen the link between education, skills, and employability.

In 2016, OECD research examined the extent to which different types of jobs were subject to automation, and found a clear inverse relationship between level of education and exposure to technological automation. In other words: those with only secondary education were most exposed, while those with a college degree were least exposed.

In 2023, University of Pennsylvania reran this research in the wake of ChatGPT’s rise to prominence, and observed a startling change: that those with college degrees were almost as exposed to the impact of automation as those without. This transformation in exposure means that higher education needs to respond more urgently than ever – by ensuring that its learners are equipped with the skills most necessary for the modern economy – and those most resistant to automation.

77% of employers now back skills-based hiring practices

This shift in approach is doubly necessary as employers increasingly look to adopt a skills-based approach to hiring, rather than a credentials-based one. A 2023 Coursera study found that 77% of employers now back skills-based hiring practices. Students, too, are responding: the same study saw 60% of students say that using their skills is their top priority in a job. It is clear that both students and employers alike view skills as the bridge between education and successful employability.

As Degree’s evolve to meet student and employer needs and preferences, institutions worldwide are increasingly adopting microcredentials in their circular offering

To ensure that the degree continues to evolve to meet student and employer needs and preferences, Coursera has observed institutions worldwide increasingly adopt microcredentials as part of their curricular offerings – both for-credit and as additional scaffolding for the degree. Often offered by leading industry players such as Microsoft, Google, and Meta; and designed to prepare learners for entry-level roles in high-demand fields in as little as a few months, microcredentials are ideally placed to supplement the theoretical rigour of the traditional degree with the key digital and human skills most coveted by employers.

To understand the nature and speed of, motivations for, and barriers preventing this shift towards microcredentials, Coursera recently surveyed over 1,000 higher education leaders across 850+ institutions in 89 countries. While platforms like Coursera are keen to ensure that learners have access to job-relevant content – irrespective of location, income, or prior experience – it felt essential to understand how institutions were thinking about alternative forms of credential, and how they perceived their value in a rapidly-changing world.

Our results suggest that academic leaders feel strongly, and positively, about their ability to ensure that universities are fulfilling the employability element so central to their mission. 97% of higher education leaders offering microcredentials believe these credentials strengthen students’ long-term career prospects. 

51% of global leaders say their institutions are integrating micro-credentials

Reflecting this consensus, institutions are moving to adopt them with increasing speed: today, over half (51%) of global leaders say their institutions are integrating micro-credentials, allowing students to develop applicable, job-ready skills while earning their degree. Of that 51%, approximately half are offering them in credit-bearing ways.

That they proved invaluable to students is also demonstrated by our finding that, of those institutions that implemented microcredentials on their campuses, 73% then either offered more of them, or offered them to an increasing proportion of their student base. Once universities choose to supplement their degrees with microcredentials, they tend to quickly perceive their value.

Though these results are encouraging – there is a groundswell in institutional adoption of these degree-enhancing credentials – that only 51% have adopted microcredentials so far, and only one-quarter for-credit,  suggests that more can be done to ensure that they become a standard accompaniment to a university degree. 

What barriers have prevented University Leaders from weaving microcredentials into their degree offerings?

To understand why adoption had not kept pace with perceived value and intention, we also asked our university leaders to explain what barriers had prevented them from weaving microcredentials into their degree offerings. 

The results suggest that the primary obstacles are awareness (cited as a barrier by half of respondents), clear curricular alignment (45%), and uncertainty about the quality of specific offerings (35%). A quarter (27%) also cited faculty resistance as an obstacle. 

We believe that awareness will continue to grow among higher education leaders as the range and rigour of microcredentials expands. We also acknowledge the importance of independent validation of the quality of specific courses, so that institutions have clear verification that the content they are selecting is academically rigorous. To this end, Coursera is striving to ensure that its industry Professional Certificates and other microcredentials are validated by, and recommended for academic credit by, leading accrediting bodies and skills and qualifications frameworks. We have been pleased to see a number of our courses receive credit recommendations from national and regional accreditation bodies, including ACE, ECTS, and NSQF. 

Though barriers to adoption remain, we believe that the future is trending towards a more multifaceted degree becoming the norm: one that combines traditional curricular content with the opportunity to get job-ready skills valued by employers and offered by some of the world’s most prestigious companies. There are multiple ways in which adoption supports a university’s success, including:

• Increasing student satisfaction (cited as a benefit by 87% of higher education leaders)
• Boosting student retention (80%)
• Encouraging lifelong learning (97%)

Though the holistic academic education offered by the traditional degree will continue to remain invaluable, it is clear that the pace of technological change is encouraging employers to increasingly value being able to clearly validate candidate skills. The link between the emergence of generative AI and the accelerating shift towards skills-based hiring was highlighted by a recent collaborative report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which found that 71% of leaders said they’d rather hire a less experienced candidate with AI skills than a more experienced candidate without.

Our research suggests that, over the coming years, the institutions that respond to these demands by giving students the opportunity to access microcredentials will be in a strong position to attract and retain students, and, most importantly, nurture satisfied, employable graduates with a desire to continue learning throughout their life. At Coursera, we are keen to continue expanding and enhancing our microcredential offerings, easing the transition towards this student-centric, work-aligned future  for further education leaders across the world.

By Nikolaz Foucaud, Managing Director, EMEA, Coursera

The 2024 Microcredentials Impact Report is available for consultation to all further education leaders here.