Improving Employability: Rising Demand for STEM Courses Among Women
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Women in Malaysia are becoming more interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses.
More women in Malaysia enrolling for STEM courses in 2021
According to the American open online course company Coursera's Women and Skills Report 2021, STEM course enrolments among women learners in Malaysia climbed from 29% in 2019 to a significant 36% in 2021.
Coursera's Asia-Pacific managing director Raghav Gupta said that since STEM courses include a wide range of core digital abilities, Malaysian women are not the only ones enhancing their "employability" for future employment by learning these vital skills online.
According to Gupta, as more women reskill for better employment opportunities in the tech-driven knowledge economy, this tendency is spreading worldwide.
He went on to say that by removing time and location barriers, online learning offers crucial flexibility for women balancing personal and career commitments by allowing them to fit learning into their schedules.
He added that modular content makes it easier for such learners to learn in chunks at their own pace.
Learning, whenever and wherever
Gupta stated that until now, the "location" had been key to choices and opportunities in the labour market, attracting high-skilled employees to industry clusters and concentrating top talent in a few successful hubs.
During the Covid-19 outbreak, Gupta said that the fast-changing shift everyone experienced shattered the concept that employment has to be location-specific.
He added that with the rise of remote work and unrestricted talent movement, anyone could work from anywhere in the world for the first time.
According to Gupta, online learning is essential because many Malaysian campuses have quickly adapted by incorporating plug-and-play online courseware from leading worldwide institutions into their curriculum.
He explained that since campuses needed to get up and running quickly, they used high-quality courses that suited their curriculum.
He added that it has evolved into a mechanism for universities to provide students with consistently enhanced, up-to-date education, in addition to assuring learning continuity.
Integrating hybrid models would allow universities to regularly renew programmes, keep up with technological advances and develop industry-relevant skills to increase students' employability.
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Coursera's STEM course enrolments among women learners in this country increased to 36% in 2021.
Gupta claimed that online courses had become more inclusive to meet non-traditional students' demands.
He said that micro-credentials, one of the evolution's outcomes, are now helping unemployed people get back on their feet.
He noted that due to Malaysia's demand and value among job seekers, enrolments for job-relevant entry-level professional certification on Coursera increased by 75% last year.
Source: The Edge Markets