Microsoft India aims to create new opportunities in education: expands 'Partners in Learning' program
Microsoft India aims to create new opportunities in education: expands 'Partners in Learning' program
Phase two of Partners in learning will involve three core programs : “Innovative Teachers, Innovative Students, Innovative Schools”
Launch of www.indiashiksha.com to connect Indian educators to peer
Five Year investment in education initiatives : USD 20 million
New Delhi;
June 04, 2008 — Microsoft India today announced a renewed investment of USD 20 million in the education space over the next five years. The company has also renewed its commitment to the India chapter of Partners in Learning, its global program that provides the education community with resources and training that can allow students, teachers and institutions to reach their full potential. Microsoft's stated mission for education is to
empower people to realize their social and economic potential by enabling access to quality education experiences for all through technology.
At a global level, Partners in Learning has leveraged the transformative power of software to touch the lives of more than 100 million students, teachers and education policymakers in 101 countries. In India, the first phase of Partners in Learning so far has been Project Shiksha - which has created a unique milestone by training more than 240,000 government school teachers between 2003 and now.
In the next phase of Partners in Learning in India, Microsoft will aim to address national education priorities by partnering with governments and introducing a focus on three core programs: Innovative Teachers, Innovative Students and Innovative Schools.
Innovative Teachers: will aim to provide educators with tools, forums and resources that build communities of practice, support collaboration and access to quality content, and challenge them to integrate ICT into teaching and learning in a meaningful way. The flagship program, Project Shiksha, will continue to impart IT training to teachers and educators. The immediate aim will be to train another 50,000 teachers in IT skills in the next year.
Since an important element of Partners in Learning is connecting the global teaching community, Microsoft today also launched the www.indiashiksha.com
portal to enable Indian teachers and educators to connect to this network.
-Innovative Students: will empower students to use ICT in their schoolwork and learning. Microsoft will work with governments, NGOs and other partners to provide affordable, reliable software for primary and secondary school students, giving underserved students access to computing platforms for education.
-Innovative Schools: is a brand new initiative focusing on the school model for India, facilitated with research and evaluation. It will provide schools, governments and partners with resources, training, expertise and technology blueprints that help better prepare students for life and work.
Announcing the program expansion, Jean-Philippe Courtois, President, Microsoft, said, "We believe that investing in education is the most effective way to help young people achieve their potential. India, with its wealth of human capital, can achieve a great deal – not just for itself, but for the world at large – if the intelligence and potential of its youth is harnessed. Through Partners in Learning, we aim to encourage the use of technology in the
classroom to make learning exciting and relevant for the 21st century."
Partners in Learning is the key education initiative under Microsoft's Unlimited Potential, the company's global effort to creating sustained social and economic opportunity for everyone. The other efforts that look at transforming education in India include investments in institutions, teachers and students. This has included investments in educational institutions in the states of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to increase the effectiveness and relevance of student projects. The investment enabled students to be industry ready through linkages to select projects. Another recent milestone has been the setting up of an IT laboratory in IIT-Madras.
As a direct investment to improve the employability quotient of students, Microsoft India has also trained faculty members to teach advanced industry technologies – indirectly reaching more than 80 per cent of all engineering students. The company has also created a platform for faculty to share and adopt best practices from professors around the globe. Direct impact has involved the provision of the latest technology to students at no cost to them: the MSDN
Academic Alliance (MSDN AA) helps improve the infrastructure of laboratories in the colleges and empowers students with free original software for their entire term keeping them on the cutting edge of the technology.
"At every level, education remains crucial for India's continued growth. The investment made in it over the years is what has propelled India's growth in the knowledge economy - and it is critical that we continue to focus on education. Unless we educate hundreds of millions of people and create jobs for them, we will starve our businesses of the skilled talent as India moves into the next phase of its growth in the knowledge economy. It's only right that in
our endeavour to partner with India on its journey towards socio economic growth, we've chosen education as one of the focus areas", said Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India. India has the largest education system in the world, with the government looking at computerizing schools in the coming years. The Partners in Learning strategy of concentrating on teachers, schools and schools dovetails with the government's mission of looking for innovative solutions for reaching out to an increasing number of young people.
About
Unlimited Potential /span
Microsoft, through its Unlimited Potential vision, is commitfted to making technology more affordable, relevant and accessible or the 5 billion people around the world who do not yet enjoy its benefits. The company aims to do so by helping to transform education and foster a culture of innovation, and through these means enable better jobs and opportunities. By working with governments, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations and industry partners, Microsoft hopes to reach its first major milestone — to reach the next 1 billion people who are not yet realizing the benefits of technology — by 2015.
About Microsoft India
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft corporation India Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in thirteen cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Pune and coimbatore.
For further press information, please contact:
Dolly Tayal, Genesis B-M: +91 9899101140/ dolly.tayal@bm.com
Sabah Hamid, Microsoft India: 95124-4158000/
sabah@microsoft.com
