The Hindu Business Line : Microsoft to spend $20 m on Project Shiksha

MICROSOFT Corporation India Pvt Ltd will spend $20 million on its "Project Shiksha" initiative, which will be rolled out in 10 States across the country in a phased manner. About 80,000 teachers working in the Government and Government-aided schools will be provided IT training over the next five years.

This was stated by Mr Rajiv Kaul, Managing Director of Microsoft India, who on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding with the West Bengal Government for the roll-out of Project Shiksha in the State.

Over the next five years, Microsoft will reach out to over 12,000 teachers and one million students in the Government and Government-aided schools in West Bengal.

A teachers' training institute would be set up where teachers would be provided comprehensive training in computer literacy and computer-aided education.

The courseware would be both in English and Bengali and the entire training module for each batch of teachers would be of 95 hours duration spread over 12 days. These "master trainers" would then impart computer education in their respective schools. The West Bengal Department of Information Technology is the facilitator in the project even as the State's Department of Education would be the implementing agency.

Necessary localisation of the programme's master module would be done.

Project Shiksha was launched by Mr Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect of Microsoft Corporation, while on a visit to India in November 2002.

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