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Rajasthan logs in for I-T education in govt. schools

Special Correspondent

Signs MoU with Microsoft for a scheme imparting IT skills to 8,000 teachers

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Government on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft Corporation of India Private Limited for a five-year-long computer education programme in schools under "Project Shiksha -- Empowering the future''. The programme encompasses imparting IT skills to 8,000 teachers and thereby to over 400,000 students across 3,000 government schools in the State.

The MoU was signed, at the official residence of Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, by C.K.Mathew, the State's Principal Secretary, Education and Rohit Kumar, Country Head-Public Sector, Microsoft India. Ms. Raje, Education Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari and Managing Director of Public Sector, Microsoft Asia Pacific, Peter Moore were present.

"Microsoft has a long term vision for the cause of IT education. We are committed to collaborate with the Governments across the world to ensure integration of IT in the education process,'' Mr. Moore observed referring to the "Project Shiksha-Empowering the future'' programme launched by Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft during his visit to India in November 2002.

The MoU entails setting up a Microsoft IT Academy Centre at Jaipur for delivering comprehensive teacher training. The Academy would be a world class facility equipped with state of the art IT lab encompassing hardware, software, curriculum and staff for education delivery and administration.

The formulation and implementation of a teacher training programme, creation of a local IT curriculum for students, rolling out of teachers and student scholarship programmes and assisting the Government to set up a teachers' portal also form part of the agreement.

"Every single country would want to follow this initiative hereafter,'' Ms.Raje said referring to the MoU as the outcome of the discussions she had with world leaders in IT at Davos in January this year. "This is only a beginning. The other IT majors are also coming to Rajasthan soon. There is a place for all of them. This is a huge market,'' she said.

The programme is shaped in the format of the Jordan experiment which had become a world model later. However, the situations were incomparable as against Jordan's 58,000 students Rajasthan has a target of 1 crore children. As against 92 schools in Jordan the State has 75,000 schools, Ms.Raje pointed out.

Mr.Tiwari said the contribution from the State Government was the premises they would be providing to Microsoft to operate from. In a symbolic gesture he also handed over the keys of the premises in "Shiksha Sankul'', the complex housing offices of the Education department here to Mr.Moore for the project. "You can start right away,'' Mr.Tiwari said.

Mr.Mathew said the MoU with Microsoft was the first agreement between the Education Department and a major private player in computers. "A few more MoUs are in the offing,'' he said.

As for Microsoft Rajasthan is the eighth State in India with which it has entered into such agreements under Project Shiksha. The others are: Uttranchal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh.

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