Daijiworld News Network - Bangalore (GA)

Bangalore, Jan 20: State minister for primary and secondary education R Ramalinga Reddy inaugurated the third IT Academy of Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. in the city on Friday January 20 morning.

The Academy is a key part of the MoU signed in November 2004 between Microsoft and the Government of Karnataka for the implementation of the Microsoft Partners-in-Learning (PiL) program, which is aimed at accelerating IT literacy amongst government school teachers and students in the state. The MoU entailed the setting-up of 3 IT Academy centres in the state. The other two Academies are already functioning in Gulbarga and Dharwad.

As per the MoU, Microsoft has committed to train over 20,000 teachers and 400,000 students (from class III to class XII) across the state in the coming 5 years. The company has already trained more than 2500 teachers at the two Academies.

In his inaugural address minister Reddy said  ''Computer Training is presently being imparted to 1238 High School teachers and 765 primary school teachers in the state. The union government has approved imparting computer training to 480 more High Schools and funds have been released for this purpose, and tenders are also being invited."