Google announces Certifications Scholarships for 30,000 Africans

Google on Monday said it was offering scholarships to 30,000 mobile developers as part of its commitment to provide training and bridge the skills gap among 100,000 Africans in five years.

The Country Director, Google Nigeria, Mrs Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazo, said that the 30,000 developers would be trained through its Google Africa Certifications Scholarships.

Ehimuan-Chiazo said that 1,000 grants would also be offered for the Google Associate Android, Mobile Web and Associate Cloud Engineer certifications.

The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that in March 2018, Google announced its commitment to bridge the skills gap among developers in Africa with a plan to train 100,000 developers across the region in five years.

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Already, Google has trained 15,000 people in its Google Africa Scholarship challenge programme to provide Android and Web development training to developers across Africa.

“Africa is on track to have the largest working-age population of 1.1 billion by 2034.

“Today’s Google African Certifications Scholarships announcement marks a transition from inspiring new developers to preparing them for the jobs of tomorrow.

“Google’s certifications are developed around a job-task analysis and test learners for skills employers expect developers to have in these domains,” she said in a statement.

Ehimuan-Chiazo said that the developer training was available to applicants from across Africa, and would be delivered by Google’s partners, Pluralsight and Andela.

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She added that both would deliver an intensive learning curriculum designed to prepare motivated learners for entry-level and intermediate roles as software developers in these fields.

“The Google Africa Certifications Scholarships announcement on Monday follows the announcement of 15, 000 single course scholarships and 500 nano-degree scholarships in March last year.

“Google’s continued initiatives focused on digital skills training, education and economic opportunity and support for African startups and developers, demonstrate our commitment to helping advance a healthy and vibrant developer ecosystem.

“By providing support for training and certifications, we will help to bridge the unemployment gap on the continent through increasing the number of employable software developers,” she said.