The project, supported by Commonwealth of Learning (CoL), the world’s only inter-governmental organisation solely concerned with the promotion and development of distance education and open learning, is offering full scholarship to one thousand (1000) Ghanaians in its first year through a competitive application process.

Acting Head of Corporate Affairs at Ghana Library Authority, Jemima Ansong, indicated that Ghana was chosen as part of four countries in the commonwealth to benefit from the partnership. The other countries in the commonwealth whose citizens will benefit from this opportunity include Kenya, Rwanda and Bangladesh.

“The world largest online learning platform, Udemy has been engaged by Commonwealth of Learning to collaborate with the Ghana Library Authority to deliver these courses. Udemy has more than 30 million students and 50,000 instructors teaching courses in over 60 languages. Courses available for enrolment by Ghanaians are in the area of Data Science, Cloud Computing, Project Management, IT Operations, Design, Finance and Accounting, Human Resource, Leadership and Management, Office Productivity, Marketing, Sales and others.” She stated.

“As the second oldest incorporated institution by an Act of parliament in the country, we have promoted reading and life-long learning for the past 70 years and it is only natural for us to respond to the needs of our society.  In as much as we promote leisure reading, it is incumbent on us to also ensure that, our patrons have access to opportunities for self-development to enable them become attractive on the job market hence our quest to leverage on technology partners to roll out this opportunity for Ghanaians,” said Mr Hayford Siaw, Executive Director of Ghana Library Authority.

He added “a few months ago, we released our mobile App on iOS and Android to give opportunity for Ghanaians to have access to leisure reading contents and the outdoor of this learning platform with CoL and Udemy, is in furtherance to the object of our Technology strategy to radically connect Ghanaians to knowledge resources.”

Head of Technology and Innovation at Ghana Library Authority, Janice Tagoe also stated, “For decades, Libraries have been known as the university for everyone and we are just living by our true existence; that is; to be the university for everyone’’.

Ghana Library Authority has opened applications from today, 6^th January to 31^st January, 2020 for interested applicants to apply at ghanalibrary.org/read2skill.

The 1000 successful candidates will be offered full scholarship to enrol on their selected courses.