The Hindu Business Line : TN in pact with Microsoft for training teachers

MICROSOFT Corporation India and the Tamil Nadu School Education Department on Monday signed an agreement to provide training to teachers in the State by establishing and running an information technology academy in the city for a period of five years.

The State government will provide the building and Microsoft will set up the facility equipped with IT lab encompassing hardware, software, curriculum and staff for education delivery and administration free of cost, says a State government press release.

Ms Girija Vaidyanathan, State School Education Secretary, and Mr Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation India, signed the agreement.

Under this project, called Partners in Learning Programme, teachers will receive computer training in batches of forty over the next five years. Each batch will receive 12 days of residential training. Microsoft will also assist the State government in designing the curriculum, providing courseware for students and in assessment.

Apart from this, Microsoft will train teachers in batches of 20 in five District Institutes of Education Training across the State, the press release says.

The training is expected to benefit around 20,000 teachers and indirectly reach over 10 lakh students across the State. The agreement also entails the formulation and implementation of a teacher training programme, rolling out teacher and student scholarship programmes and assisting the State government for setting up a teacher's portal, the release says.

Mr Venkatesan of Microsoft in the release said that the company will develop software much more accessible to schools at affordable cost for the benefit of teachers and students.

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