Johannesburg has become the first African city to offer a free online education platform that targets youth unable to afford higher education. Launched earlier this year, the Massive Open Online Varsity has more than 4000 young people currently enrolled for entry-level qualifications, with time and effort being the only cost.The courses on offer are accredited by international institutions such as the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, University of Adelaide, Microsoft Academy and website creation company Wix Web.The platform is accessible to Johannesburgers aged between 18 and 34 at video-enabled MOOV learning centres in six city libraries, which include White City Jabavu, Alexandra, central Johannesburg, and Orange Farm, which has the highest number of participants.More centres will be launched in Ivory Park, Eldorado Park, Cosmo City, Poortjie and Diepsloot in the next two months.Distance learning platforms such as MOOV are interactive user forums based on America's Massive Open Online Course phenomenon.The platforms make interaction between students, professors and teaching assistants possible.The City of Johannesburg, through its Vulindlel' eJozi programme, invested R25-million in the rollout of MOOV.Mayoral spokesman Phindile Chauke said statistics showed that there was a vast gap in higher education that the city needed to help people to cross."The Johannesburg statistics from Census 2011 tell the story of how big a problem education access is. Only 12.7% of Johannesburg residents have a post-high school qualification."If you narrow that to those who have bachelor degrees or higher, the figure drops to 5.8%. That's 94% not making it to the bachelor degree rung ," Chauke added.One hundred and fifty MOOV graduates already have been awarded certificates in webmaster, web design, and financial management and marketing."They will be able to upgrade to an advanced level in computer coding," Chauke said...