Skills qualifications ‘suffering from lack of public trust’

Skills-specific training courses can help universities to bridge gaps in their curricula, but they continue to be viewed with mistrust despite rising demand, according to an executive at edtech firm Coursera.

Marni Baker Stein, chief content officer at the company since 2022, told Times Higher Education that “there’s not a great taxonomy of trust” about what “microcredentials” can do.

She said it was incumbent on universities and companies such as hers to encourage public faith in the certificates, to show that they can transform professional opportunities.

Microcredentials, which certify competency or skill in a specific area, can be embedded within university degree courses, with proponents arguing that they enhance employability.

Coursera’s 2026 Microcredentials Impact Report, based on conversations with some 3,500 employers, students and higher education leaders, found that 87 per cent of graduates with microcredentials report “securing a role aligned to their field” within 12 months of leaving university.

But Stein that said “people are just getting used” to how critical the qualifications could be.

“We’re seeing this demand on the part of learners, but there still isn’t a common currency or trust of microcredentials themselves,” she said. “There’s not a great taxonomy of trust, I think just because they’re new.

“The degree has been the primary currency for so long, especially when we’re talking about entry-level jobs.”

However, according to Stein, it is skills-based certificates that “really signal readiness” for the professional world.

“It’s a new genre of credential that people are just getting used to, and it’s really important that universities and platforms like Coursera are doing everything we can to accelerate trust [in them],” she said.

After starting life offering massive open online courses, Coursera has pivoted in recent years into skills-based and workforce training, especially in artificial intelligence.

“In a skills-first economy, degrees must prove what graduates can do, not just what they studied,” says its new report, published on 4 June. One of its findings is that 94 per cent of employers surveyed “are willing” to offer a higher starting salary to graduates with microcredentials.

In universities, meanwhile, 88 per cent of higher education leaders polled by researchers in the UK said that embedding microcredentials helps to “bridge curriculum gaps” and update courses more quickly.

“Education is, I think, at a place where it’s going to have to radically transform itself to keep up with what’s going on in the world of work,” Stein added, reflecting on the impact of AI.

“The needs of learners not only who are aged 18 to 24, but lifelong [learners], we’re going to have to back up, reconsider that [traditional educational] model and come up with something new if we’re going to help people get through this.”

georgia.luckhurst@timeshighereducation.com