Maha ties up with Microsoft to train teachers

The government of Maharashtra has signed an MoU with Microsoft India, which will provide training in information technology to school

teachers. Microsoft will also help build "employability-readiness skills'' in junior college students.

Currently, Microsoft India has set up three state-of-the-art IT academies, in Pune, Nagpur and Aurangabad, and trained over 92,000 teachers.

Under the new agreement, Microsoft will train one educator from each cluster in the state, who will be required to undergo a 10-day training module in a classroom setup.

Microsoft will conduct over 200 sessions at the district-level over the next two years in order to train 6,000 resource persons in as many clusters.

Additionally, the initiative will focus on building employability readiness among students in classes XI and XII. Under the agreement, Microsoft will help students learn the fundamentals of computing. The programme will include soft skills like English-speaking personality development and grooming.

Microsoft will also provide a login which will enable students and teachers across the approximately 85,000 schools in the state to acquire email with school-specific domains, and give schools the tools with which to create an online community.