FAQ For Coursera Scholarship

What is COL- Coursera Scholarship?

COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship is an initiative of Commonwealth of Learning (COL) under its Skills for Work program. The Scholarship is aimed at enabling citizens of commonwealth nation acquire skills to gain employment, work, and livelihood.

What is Skills for Work Program?

Skills for Work ,an initiative of Commonwealth of Learning (COL), aims to support the efforts of Commonwealth Member States to disseminate skills required for decent employment and entrepreneurship and pave the way for skilling, reskilling, upskilling and lifelong learning.

Skills for Works takes a two-pronged approach:
  • Through hybrid models that apply open and distance learning techniques, it helps women, girls, youth, people with disabilities, entrepreneurs, and the unemployed at the community level to acquire relevant 21st Century, life and essential skills, and access in-country mentorship support.
  • Through varied partnership models, it enhances ODL capabilities of both TVET institutions and other non-governmental organisations involved in skill development to share and adapt open educational resources; develop capacity in blended teaching/learning practices; scale up outreach efforts; and, respond to the market needs.

Skills for Work believes that the success and the growth of private eLearning providers in both the developed world and in emerging economies contributes to closing the education and skills gap. The model of low-cost, highly convenient, accessible and self-paced, flexible self-learning is a direct answer to the needs of unemployed youth, workers in the informal economy and people with mobility challenges.

What is Coursera ?

Coursera is an online education provider that offers online courses, popularly known as MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses, from top universities around the world.These partners include Stanford, Duke, Penn, Princeton, Michigan, Peking, and HEC Paris. Coursera also partners with companies like IBM, Google, and PwC — these companies have also launched courses on Coursera. Currently it has 190 active partners from 48 countries around the world.

As well as individual courses and 16 online degrees , Coursera offers 400 groups of courses known as Specializations, Professional Certificates, and MasterTracks. Some groups of courses can be used as credit towards degrees available through Coursera, but these are not free when used as university credit.

How to join Coursera under COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship?

If you already have a Coursera account, you can link Coursera account created under the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program to your existing account when you accept your invitation (this can be done with or without single sign on – for more information on SSO, see below).

Connecting your accounts lets you:

  • Keep all your Course Certificates in one account beyond end of the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program ;
  • Log in with your original Coursera account to access your learning program.

To connect your accounts:

  1. If the invitation is sent to your existing email, you’ll be prompted to enter in your existing password.
  2. If the invitation is sent to an new email, you’ll need to click Connect your existing account after you accept your invitation by following these instructions:
    1. Make sure you are not logged into Coursera already ( or try an incognito or private browser)
    2. Click on the invitation sent from Commonwealth of Learning, click JOIN NOW.
    3. Browse for a course or Specialization you are interested in joining and click START
    4. On the “SET UP YOUR ACCOUNT” screen, click LINK YOUR ACCOUNT
    5. Enter the email address and password associated with your existing Coursera account
    6. Click LOGIN

This will connect your learning program under the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program to your personal email account. You can then keep all your Course Certificates in one account beyond end of COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program . You can also use the same email address used for your current Coursera account so , if selected for the scholarship program, COL can send an invitation to the email address you’re already using for Coursera. In this case, you will be prompted to enter your password connected to your existing email.

If you miss the step to link your accounts from your invitation, you can and ask COL to invite you to the scholarship program again. Then you can log in with your original Coursera account to access your learning program. If you have already made progress with your second account, that progress will be deleted when you delete that account.

Can I use a Coursera account I already have?

If you already have a Coursera account, you can link Coursera account created under the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program to your existing account when you accept your invitation (this can be done with or without single sign on – for more information on SSO, see below).

Connecting your accounts lets you:

  • Keep all your Course Certificates in one account beyond end of the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program ;
  • Log in with your original Coursera account to access your learning program.

To connect your accounts:

  • If the invitation is sent to your existing email, you’ll be prompted to enter in your existing password.
  • If the invitation is sent to an new email, you’ll need to click Connect your existing account after you accept your invitation by following these instructions:
    1. Make sure you are not logged into Coursera already ( or try an incognito or private browser)
    2. Click on the invitation sent from Commonwealth of Learning, click JOIN NOW.
    3. Browse for a course or Specialization you are interested in joining and click START
    4. On the “SET UP YOUR ACCOUNT” screen, click LINK YOUR ACCOUNT
    5. Enter the email address and password associated with your existing Coursera account
    6. Click LOGIN

This will connect your learning program under the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program to your personal email account. You can then keep all your Course Certificates in one account beyond end of COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program . You can also use the same email address used for your current Coursera account so , if selected for the scholarship program, COL can send an invitation to the email address you’re already using for Coursera. In this case, you will be prompted to enter your password connected to your existing email.

If you miss the step to link your accounts from your invitation, you can and ask COL to invite you to the scholarship program again. Then you can log in with your original Coursera account to access your learning program. If you have already made progress with your second account, that progress will be deleted when you delete that account.

Whom to contact if I am having any difficulties to sign up for Grow with Google account under COL-Grow with Google Skills for Work Scholarship?

Experts located in Bangladesh will offer help with choosing courses, and provide administrative, academic support, as well as mentorship and counseling.

Mobile: +8801883951291
WhatsApp: +8801883951291
Telegram: +8801883951291
Email: sfw-helpdesk@betterfuture4women.org.bd
Skype: skillsforwork.helpdesk

What if I miss email invitations from Commonwealth of Learning?

If you’re missing an email invitation to join your the learning program, please send an email to COL Helpdesk to send you another invitation email. Make sure you are also checking your spam/junk folder.
Col Help-desk email link:

Can you get a Coursera Certificate for Free if you are not a recipient of COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship?

Certificates were free in Coursera’s early days. Unfortunately, you can’t get a free certificate for completing Coursera courses now without participating in a sponsored learning program, such as COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship. Many MOOC providers have stopped offering free certificates for completing their online courses.

Can you get a Coursera Certificates for free under COL- Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship?

Yes. Commonwealth of Learning has paid the license fee for the courses available under the COL-Coursera Skills for Work Scholarship program. Upon completion of courses, recipients of the scholarship will be able to download a certificate. The program offers 5100 + courses under various categories?

How many cohort or batches and scholarship available for Bangladesh in 2021?

4000 scholarship will be offered in 2021.

First Batch- 2000 scholarship: 1 April 2021 – 30 September 2021 (6 months)
Second Batch – 2000 scholarship: 1 October 2021 – 31 March 2022 (6 months)

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