Google Online Courses

Over the last two weeks, education companies Advtech and Curro both released okay looking numbers. Nursery school divisions have been weak because there is no legal requirement to send a child to nursery school. Both groups successfully launched digital-only schools. Online learning is becoming the new norm, so it makes sense to have digital-only schools. Not having to build and maintain a physical campus is a huge saving!

Most teachers I have spoken to rely on Google to provide the online infrastructure. From Google Meet to stream the sessions, Google Docs for capturing work and Google Drive to store all the material. Google is now taking things one step further, by creating its own online certification program.

The company plans to create online certification programs that are very focused and practical, using their employee experience of what is required in the workplace. Instead of doing a multi-year degree, Google offers a cheap but focused, 6 month program. Being entirely online allows Google to keep costs down.

Interestingly, Google has also said that they will start giving a similar weighting to online certifications in their hiring processes. This is an warning shot to the traditional education system. Google is basically saying that traditional education is overpriced, takes too long and includes too many things that are not needed in the real world.

Read more here - Google's plan to disrupt higher education.