Microsoft honors teachers for use of IT in the classroom

Televisionpoint.com Team
Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited today felicitated the second batch of winners, of its 'Innovative Teachers Leadership' award, instituted last year under its flagship India education program 'Project Shiksha - Empowering the future'. These awards seek to honor eminent school teachers, who are innovatively using IT in their teaching techniques.

The Awards ceremony was held in Delhi in the presence of an august gathering of teachers and academicians from various schools and institutions. Luminaries present at the event included Mr. Keshav Desi Raju, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Dr. S Chona, Principal, Delhi Public School, Mr. Chetan Sharma, Director and Founder Datamation and Mr. O.P Singh, Commissioner, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS). The awards seek to honour 15 exceptional teachers from both government and private schools who have made an outstanding contribution towards the innovative use of technology in classroom training.

The winners, selected from across the country, will attend a 3-day regional seminar being held next month in Seoul, South Korea. The conference will see a gathering of over 150 creative minds from 23 countries, and provide the attendees a unique opportunity to both showcase their best practices and gain valuable insights into innovative practices being deployed by their contemporaries across the region.

Microsoft's Project Shiksha program-'Empowering the future' was launched by Bill Gates, Chairman and Chief Software Architect, Microsoft on his India visit in November 2002. Entailing an India investment of $20 million, Project Shiksha seeks to deliver affordable software solutions, comprehensive training and curriculum to over 80,000 school teachers and 3.5 million students across schools.

So far, Microsoft has trained over 42,000 teachers and reached out to over 2.1 million students in the first phase of implementation of Project Shiksha. MoUs have been signed with 9 state governments including Uttaranchal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Microsoft IT Academies are up and running in Uttaranchal (Dehradun), Karnataka (Gulbarga & Dharwad), Maharashtra (Pune and Nagpur ) and Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad).

In addition, Microsoft has signed an MoU with the Municipal Corporation of New Delhi for extending reach of IT to students and teachers in MCD schools. A key deliverable of the MoU is a Teacher training program which aims to train more than 12,000 teachers over the 5 year period.

Microsoft also has a tie up with the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) schools (under the Ministry of HRD) and conducts training at 11 Training centers located in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Pondicherry and Assam. Teacher training has also commenced at JNV Panchawati, Andaman and Minicoy Islands, Lakshwadeep.

Elaborating on the award, Rohit Kumar, Country Head - Public Sector, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. said, "In an era dominated by the internet, we have to ensure that the younger generation has the ability to access, use, and adapt to the tools of our time which will enable them to compete and lead at a global level. And this has to be across the spectrum of population no matter which part of the country they live in. We believe the educators are essential to make this happen and they need to be recognized for this."