Welcome to Pluralsight Skills—the technology skills platform.
About this program
Pluralsight and Grow with Google have partnered for the final year to provide a program to support software developers across Africa in two different roles:
- Associate Android Developer
- Associate Cloud Engineer
The Google Africa Developer Scholarship (GADS) program sponsors aspiring developers in Africa to skill up with Pluralsight Skills, supported by the Google Developer community.
This program provides access to top-notch Skills courses, as well as support from the GADS program and Google Developer Community, to help you upskill on important Google technologies.
Keep learning and stay motivated.
Important: In order to participate in the GADS program, you must be at least 18 years of age and be a resident of a country in Africa. You may only register for one learning track/role.
To gain access to additional courses, you’ll need to prove your dedication to learning these tech skills by:
- Registering for your selected track. Applicants will be placed in only one track as selected in the onboarding survey during registration.
- Completing all requirements to advance to the next phase
Advancing to each subsequent phase will help you master in-demand Google developer skills with expert-authored Skills content. You'll gain skills that can help you get opportunities after the program.
Tip: If you watch a course or take a skill assessment during one of the phases, that activity counts toward the current phase as well as any future phases you may advance to.
Phases and advancement criteria
Application and promotion phase
Timeline: May 11–June 10, 2022, 11:59 MT (UTC - 7/6)
What you get access to
- Custom Pluralsight experience
- Curated Pluralsight channels, including Skill IQ
What you need to do to advance
- Register for the program (opens in new tab).
- Complete the onboarding survey (opens in new tab) as part of your registration process. Once you complete the survey, you will be redirected to register for Pluralsight.
Learning phase 1
Timeline: June 22–August 26, 2022, 11:59 MT (UTC - 7/6)
What you get access to
- More content in the track you chose.
What you need to do to advance
- For both tracks, receive 100+ score for the track-specific Skill IQ
—or—
Complete 10+ hours of track-specific content.
Learning phase 2
Timeline: August 31–TBD
What you get access to
- Even more content in the track you chose.
What you need to do to advance
- For both tracks, receive 200+ score for the track-specific Skill IQ
—or—
Complete 20+ hours of track-specific content learning phase 2.
Project phase
Timeline: November 1–30, 2022, 11:59 MT (UTC - 7/6)
What you get access to
- Access to a project in your specific track.
What you need to do to advance
Android Developer
- Score 200+ score on track-specific Skill IQ
—or—
Watch 20+ hours of track-specific content. - Complete both of your projects:
Cloud Engineer
- Score 200+ on Architecting with Google Cloud Platform Infrastructures Skill IQ
—or—
Watch 20+ hours of track-specific content. - Complete 100% of Qwiklabs associated with the Architecting with Google Compute Engine learning path (opens in a new tab) (must be complete on both Qwiklabs and Pluralsight).
Note: Pluralsight and the other partners making this offer available may change selection criteria at their discretion. Additional selection criteria may include first come, first serve; most content viewed; highest Skill IQ.
How to get started on Skills
1. Register, then log in to Pluralsight.
Note: You must complete the onboarding survey in order to register for this program.
First, choose your track during the onboarding survey. You will only be registered for the track you self-select.
Once you complete the survey, you will be redirected to a page where you can create a Pluralsight account. If you already have a Pluralsight account, use the email on that account to register, so you can keep your learning history. Then, to get started on Skills, log in (opens in new tab) and explore your custom homepage (opens in new tab).
Tip: Not sure what your password is? Reset your password (opens in new tab), and we’ll email you a link to finish resetting your password. See How do I reset my password for help if you get stuck.
Throughout the program, you'll receive emails from Andela with updates on the program. You’ll also receive email communications from Pluralsight about the platform.
2. Once you’re logged into Skills, use channels to guide your learning.
You'll find channels (opens in new tab) on your homepage in Skills. A channel is a grouping of courses centered around a specific technology or learning goal. You'll also see another channel, targeted at upgrading your technology career by building your professional business skills.
Keep reading for tips on skill assessments and our courses to get the most out of your Pluralsight access.
Take learning with you
Download courses onto your phone or laptop for learning on your schedule. Take Pluralsight with you and play courses offline. See our Downloads page (opens in new tab) for options to download the Skills app.
3. Skill up with skill assessments and course tools.
What are Pluralsight skill assessments? They’re a simple way to quickly measure a tech skill.
After taking a skill assessment, you'll get both a numeric score and a ranking of novice, emerging, average, above average, or expert in a skill area—that’s your Skill IQ.
After you get your Skill IQ, Pluralsight will give you a personalized skill analysis and recommendations on what courses to take to close your skill gaps.
Tip: Use your personalized skill analysis and custom recommendations to help you decide what to watch next. Still not sure? Check out our recommendations below.
Did you make a mistake, or want to take the assessment again? You get one free Skill IQ do-over.
Course learning tips
Each Skills video course details page has tools to help you succeed.
Begin each course by clicking Start Course. Below that button, you’ll find some of these extra learning aids:
- A clickable transcript of the course
Note: While many Skills courses have transcripts, some do not. We are adding transcripts to courses every week.
- Exercise files to download. For some courses, this will be a PDF of the slide deck. For others, it will be a file that allows you to code right along with the author.
- A discussion board that allows you to post questions and learn along with other learners
- Learning checks. Some courses have learning checks that help gauge what you’ve learned from the course.
On the video player, be sure to notice these features:
- Skip ahead or backward 10 seconds.
- Most courses support closed captioning, or subtitles. If the course has closed captions, you can use our translation tool, also.
- Speed up or slow down the course playback.
- From the Settings cogwheel, adjust the video playback quality, caption language, and also give us feedback on the course.
If you're experiencing issues with playing videos, start by checking your connection. Follow our video checkup tool (opens in new tab) to identify video playback issues.
Sometimes, internet bandwidth is not large enough to handle the demand. There are a few reasons why this might happen.
We find that most buffering issues occur when users switch from the Auto setting to a higher quality setting. The video player automatically detects bandwidth availability and adjusts play quality accordingly to keep a continuous stream. If you manually adjusted it to a higher quality setting, change it back to Auto.
Other reasons include: large volumes of people watching Skills video content, an increased number of devices using your Wi-Fi, or a weak Wi-Fi connection.
If you are having buffering issues, you can:
- Make sure your Wi-Fi router is centrally located
- Switch the video player setting to Auto
- See our Downloads page (opens in new tab) to download the video using our mobile and desktop apps. Once your video is downloaded, you can watch the video without internet connection. See our instructions on downloading courses for offline viewing on our mobile apps, the macOS desktop app, and the Windows offline player.
- Decrease the bandwidth demand by turning off internet devices
Learn more about video player troubleshooting tips.
Courses included with the GADS 2022 program
If you've registered and continue to qualify for access to the GADS program, please select your track from the list below. You can see what channels and courses you have access to, as well as which skill assessment(s) you should take for your specific track. Channels are lists of the courses grouped by topic. Skill assessments help you gauge your skill level, identify gaps, and measure how your skills increase over time. We’ll add more courses to these lists for each phase as the program continues.
When you click on a channel, Join to add the channel to your My Channels list. This way, it'll be easier to find your channels.
To find these channels after you've joined them, click Channels (opens in new tab) in your navigation.
Note: You must join the channels if you watch courses on the the Skills Android or iOS mobile app. Otherwise you won't be able to find your channels. After joining each channel on the web, you'll see them in the channels section of your mobile app homepage.
Suggested course order
For each phase, you have a Foundations channel and a Deep Dive channel for your track. These channels have been broken into sections focused on specific parts of each technology in your track.
There is no required watching order for the courses in order to be eligible to advance to the next phase; however, we have created recommendations if you’d like more guidance in your learning. Otherwise, feel free to watch the courses in any order.
We recommend that you watch all the courses in the Foundations channel first and in the order they’re listed. This will give you a broad and foundational understanding of important key principles in your track.
Once you’ve finished the courses in the Foundations channel, you should start watching courses in the Deep Dive channel. Courses can be viewed based on your interests in the Foundations channel and your skill gaps. On the web version of Skills, you can see that the channel has been broken into sections to help you identify what you might like to watch next.
Click your track below to see your courses
Android developer assessments and channels
Application Phase channels
- Associate Android Developer Foundations Channel
- Associate Android Developer Foundational Deep Dive Channel
Learning Phase 1 channels
- Associate Android Developer - Learning Phase 1 Foundations Channel
- Associate Android Developer - Learning Phase 1 Deep Dive Channel
Learning Phase 2 channels
Cloud engineer assessments and channels
Application Phase channels
Learning Phase 1 channels
- Associate Cloud Engineer - Learning Phase 1 Foundations Channel
- Associate Cloud Engineer - Learning Phase 1 Deep Dive Channel
Learning Phase 2 channels
Optional channel
Both tracks grant access to an optional channel with additional courses:
This channel includes various business professional and soft skills courses. Course view time in this channel will not count toward the view time needed to advance to additional phases.
If you need help, please contact Pluralsight Support.