Vietnamese rank 3rd in Southeast Asia in online learning on Coursera

Greg Hart, CEO of Coursera, speaking at a press conference in Hanoi on Wednesday, was citing statistics as of June.

The Philippines leads Southeast Asia with 2.8 million learners, followed by Indonesia with 2.1 million, Vietnam, Singapore with 1.5 million, and Thailand with 1.1 million.

Some 152,000 Vietnamese users have enrolled in over 800 AI-related courses, four times the number a year ago.

"Every four minutes, a learner in Vietnam signs up for a course on generative AI (GenAI)," Hart said.

This aligns with global trends of machine learning, basic AI, programming, and data science courses attracting widespread interest.

The average age of Coursera learners in Vietnam is 30, lower than the global average of 34.

Vietnamese learners are accessing courses from top U.S. universities like Stanford, Michigan and Pennsylvania and companies such as Google, IBM and Microsoft.

Earlier this year Khan Academy, another American online learning platform, also reported a surge in Vietnamese users, with two million accounts and over 204 million minutes of learning recorded in the past year. This placed Vietnam second globally in user numbers, up one spot from last year and just behind Brazil.

Coursera currently partners with five Vietnamese universities: National Economics University, FPT University, Van Lang University, Phenikaa University, and British University Vietnam.

It offers over 3,000 courses in Vietnamese, and some are eligible for academic credit.

For example, FPT University has integrated more than 80 Coursera courses into its bachelor's programs in information technology and business, accounting for 20% of the curriculum.

Coursera, founded in 2012, collaborates with over 350 universities and corporations to offer its courses. It has more than 175 million learners, making it one of the world's largest online education providers.