Alison has two million people doing its courses and “perhaps one million of them have learned English here”.
After English, Indians go for HR management, operations, projects, marketing management and technical skills such as “how to build a website or a business online, how to develop e-marketing. I like these courses because they’re very enabling; and from the remotest corner of India, if you know English, you can create a website for your business and compete with anyone in the world”, says Feerick.
The way Alison certifies learners is very different, and a job seeker who says he has done a particular course online can be easily tested by the employer. Take, for example, its diploma in nursing, “which is not aligned with American or UK standards and won’t get you a job in the UK or the US. If you’re competing with somebody with traditional accreditation from a large expensive university, we don’t claim to equal them. But if you’re in Nigeria among 100 applicants for a healthcare job and the only one with an Alison nursing diploma, you can prove you know enormously more about healthcare and nursing, and will surely get the job.” Its content is from the American Medical Association.
