Microsoft India on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Maharashtra Government to enhance ICT (IT, communications and telecommunications) adoption in schools and build employability readiness skills of the future workforce.
Under the agreement, besides the academies in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad, Microsoft will help build last mile capacity among educators.
10-day training module
One educator from each cluster in the State will be required to undergo a 10-day training module in a classroom setup; and each of the trained resources can then further build ICT readiness among other educators in the cluster.
Microsoft will conduct over 200 sessions at the district level in the next two years.
At a conference attended by Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, Microsoft India Managing Director Rajan Anandan said,
“three years ago, we entered into MoUs with 10 States to set up 11 academies for providing teachers with ICT skills. Since then Microsoft has imparted training to 3.60 lakh teachers across the States with 92,000 being in Maharashtra.”
The initiative will also focus on building employability readiness among students of 11th and 12th classes. Also planned is the development of a single login through Microsoft’s Live@Edu initiative, which will enable students and teachers across about 85,000 schools in the State to acquire email and school-specific domains.In addition, one of the biggest highlights of the agreement will be the introduction of Microsoft’s global programme, DreamSpark, under which a student can get access to the suite of Microsoft Software Development tools at no cost.