OpenClassrooms Premium Is Now Free For Unemployed People In France

OpenClassrooms is one of the leading MOOC platform in France, and it signed an interesting deal with the French Government. Starting today, if you are unemployed, you get a free premium account on OpenClassrooms.

3 million people use OpenClassrooms every month. Most of it is free, but you can pay €20 per month to get access to premium classes, unlock certificates, download videos and ebooks, be able to move at your own pace and get access to private forums. Unemployed people can now access all these classes without having to pay €20 per month. The startup is also saying that it is paying for everything. So it looks like the Government isn’t subsidizing the service.

As always with MOOC platforms, most of the classes are about technology. You can learn coding, web marketing, entrepreneurship and more. While not everybody wants to become a developer, making as many trainings free for unemployed people is a great initiative.

Unemployed people will have to fill out an online form. Then, the startup will send the information to the administration in charge of unemployment benefits in order to approve the request. Overall, it should take less than two days.

OpenClassrooms also recently launched an interesting feature. You can now sign up for a MOOC-based bachelor degree recognized by the State on the website. It will take you a couple of years, but that’s an option for those who have a busy life outside of the classroom.

Let’s see if these recent new additions will foster growth for the platform. Unemployed people who like OpenClassrooms could recommend it to other people or use it again when they have a job. This is an interesting strategy.