Coursera Inc, a leading global online learning platform, is looking to capture the Thai market by providing a large number of courses in Thai and offering features powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to make online learning more personalised and interactive.
The company recommends the Thai government accredit qualified online courses as part of the education system.
Thai is one of seven local languages the company provides course content in as young people want to learn and seek more job opportunities in the area of remote work, said Coursera chief executive Jeff Maggioncalda.
The other six languages are Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, French, German and Bahasa Indonesia.
In Thailand, the company had 815,000 registered learners as of June 30, up 17% year-on-year, with learners enrolled in 1.5 million courses. Of the total, 49% were male, with the remainder being female, with an average age of 31. It has around 129 million registered learners worldwide with the average age being 32.
The trend among Thai learners is aligned with global learning preferences, with a strong focus on language skills and personal development.
Among the most popular courses in Thailand are "Chinese for Beginners", provided by Peking University, Google's "Foundations of Project Management", the University of Toronto's "An Introduction to Psychology", Yonsei University's "First Step Korean", and the University of Pennsylvania's "English for Career Development".
The firm says it has now made over 2,000 courses available in Thai, so learners can now access course readings, lecture video subtitles, quizzes, assessments, peer review instructions in their local language. The translated content will initially be accessible to Coursera's business and government customers and rolled out to all learners before the end of this year.
"We use AI to bridge the language and learning divide for millions across the country. With over 2,000 AI-translated courses now available in Thai, learners in Thailand gain unparalleled access to the world's best educators, empowering them with skills to thrive in a digital and AI-first world," Mr Maggioncalda said.
The firm hopes to increase the number of Thai learners via double or triple digit growth next year, he said.
"We will also make use of AI's power to make voice-overs in local languages for video clips."
He said emerging jobs require digital skills and can be done remotely. The fastest growing jobs in Thailand are data analysts and data scientists, digital transformation specialists, and business development managers.
The firm also provides a beta version of its Coursera Coach programme to Coursera Plus subscribers. This generative AI-powered virtual learning assistant provides personalised feedback, answers questions, and summarises video lectures and resources. Coach also supports learners with interaction in the local language.
In addition, it has launched the Coursera ChatGPT plugin to provide enhanced personalised discovery across the Coursera catalog, allowing learners using GPT-4 to quickly recommend content and credentials to help them develop skills in a given subject or career field.
It also has an AI-assisted course building function. Based on prompts generated by human authors, the course building tool auto-generates content, including course structure, descriptions, readings, assignments and glossaries. Firms and campuses can also use this feature for private authoring, using their internal experts to produce custom courses and blend them with recommended content from participating partners on Coursera. This is now being piloted with select customers.
As the demand for online learning grows, Coursera aims to bridge Thailand's digital skills gap to support the country's economy, in which workers with advanced digital skills contribute an estimated US$75.8 billion to GDP, according to the company.
Digital skills are also strongly linked to strong economic outcomes -- workers in Thailand who utilise advanced digital skills, including in the areas of cloud architecture and software development, earn 57% higher salaries compared to those who do not use these skills at work.
The firm has 27 enterprise customers in Thailand out of 3,700 total enterprise customers worldwide and 15 campus customers out of 3,100 campus customers worldwide.
