Students to be trained by Microsoft

To equip students from class XI and XII with Information Communication and Technology (ICT) skills, Maharashtra government on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with software giant Microsoft to enhance ICT adoption in schools and to build employability readiness skills in the state among students.

The MoU is based on the success of an existing relationship and aims at taking the ICT adoption further. Under the new agreement, Microsoft will help build last mile capacity among educators. One educator from each cluster in the state will undergo a ten-day training module and each of these educators will further build ICT readiness among others educators in the cluster. Microsoft will conduct over 200 sessions over the next two years for training 6,000 resources in as many clusters.

“Microsoft will also stress on enhancement of soft skills like English speaking and basic personality grooming,” said Ranjan Anandan, MD of Microsoft India pvt ltd.

The MoU also enables development of a single login through Microsoft’s Live@Edu, which will enable students and teachers across 85,000 schools in the state to acquire email with school-specific domains, and will also give the school tools for creating an online community. Microsoft’s DreamSpark, will be introduced to students, under which a student can get access to the suite of Microsoft Software Development tools at no cost.