The Mauritius Higher Education Commission organised an award ceremony on 28 May 2022 to felicitate the learners of the first cohort of COL’s scholarship awardees for their achievement. The event was graced by the Honourable Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Mrs Leela Devi Dookun Luchoomun and President and CEO of COL Professor Asha Kanwar.

The Commonwealth of Learning as part of its Skills for Work Initiative entered an agreement in 2021 with the Higher Education Commission and the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology in Mauritius to offer 3,000 scholarships to learners between 2021-23.

Learners shared their experiences and appreciated the scholarships provided to them. COL also announced the 429 nominees for cohort 3 (The second cohort is currently in progress). Each year, two cohorts of learners are admitted to the programme and the learners are provided with a licence that they can use for online courses from Coursera, Udemy and Grow with Google learning platforms for about 6 months.

This is a novel type of scholarship for the island – it is large-scale and offers a pathway for lifelong learning and growth and enhancing skills for employment and entrepreneurship.

To date, 2,000 awards have been granted and most learners are either students or employed in the private sector. The learners in the first cohort had enrolled in almost 8,000 courses and the completion rate was over 48% which represents a significantly high percentage for self-directed online courses.