ALISON And Silatech Deliver Arabic MOOC To Tackle Youth Unemployment In The Arab World

GALWAY, IRELAND, June 6, 2013 /EINPresswire.com/ -- ALISON and Silatech, world leaders in online education and job creation have partnered to provide employability-related skills courses in Arabic, for the Arab World.

ALISON and Silatech today announced a significant partnership initiative that will provide 13 million digitally active Arab youth with eLearning access through an Arabic MOOC, helping them to learn key skills and improve their employability for free.

There are currently around 112 million young people in the Arab world between the ages of 15 and 29 (30 percent of total population), the largest proportion of youth in the region’s history (1). Youth unemployment is around 25%, the highest of any region in the world and the unavailability of relevant, high quality learning content remains a major barrier to growth (2).

Through this partnership, ALISON and Silatech have translated the ALISON portal and top five most popular courses into the Arabic language. They are also aggregating other relevant online Arabic eLearning into the ALISON portal and making it accessible to youth in the region through links with its employability portal ‘www.ta3mal.com’. As Arabic eLearning content grows, publishers and owners can offer these to the large Arab ALISON community in return for a share of ad-revenue.

Commenting on the launch, ALISON’S CEO and Founder, Mike Feerick, stated that, “Our partnership with Silatech, the leading NGO focused on developing youth employability in the Arab world, is an exciting development in our path to making workplace skills training available to all worldwide. Silatech is extraordinarily well-positioned in terms of resource and networks to make a serious impact across the MENA region.”

This eLearning portal is also a learning resource for marginalized communities – Silatech and Microsoft’s eRADA initiative will roll out ALISON and other resources on the Ta3mal portal in internet-connected training or youth centers, providing employability resources to remote communities. This is already being done in youth centers across Egypt.

Silatech’s Chief Programs Officer, Martin Roeske, stated that, “Online learning alone will not solve the issue of Arab unemployment. It is however a key piece of the puzzle, providing quality learning in remote communities which lack trainers and curricula.”

Sources: (1) http://www.silatech.com/home/about-us/why-youth-why-now
(2) http://www.e4earabyouth.com/en/aboute4e

ABOUT ALISON (Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online)

ALISON.com is revolutionizing global education and training through the provision of free interactive multimedia basic education and workplace skills training courses with certification online. With two million registered learners and 300,000 graduates worldwide, courses on ALISON are freely available from well-known multinational organisations to individual subject-matter-experts. Irish-based ALISON was founded in 2007 as a for-profit social enterprise. ALISON stands for "Advance Learning Interactive Systems Online".

ABOUT SILATECH

Silatech is a Qatar-based social initiative that works to create jobs and expand economic opportunities for young people throughout the Arab world. The organization promotes large-scale job creation, entrepreneurship, access to capital and markets, and the participation and engagement of young people in economic and social development. Founded in 2008 by Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Silatech finds innovative solutions to challenging problems, working with a wide spectrum of development organizations, governments and the private sector to foster sustainable, positive change for Arab youth. For more information on Silatech, see www.silatech.com.

Press Release courtesy of Online PR Media: http://bit.ly/11vwN1d

Suzanne Cahill
ALISON
00 353 91 744564
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