If there has been one positive outcome from the Coronavirus pandemic, it is seeing companies pull together and realise that they have to extend themselves and act more benevolently. A case in point is Microsoft, which is no stranger to social generosity.  

The latest ifrom the company is that Microsoft is joining forces with its partners to give academic institutions in South Africa free half-day training in Teams to help them effectively use the technology and enable more seamless remote learning within the country.

The company noted that It can be challenging for the many educational institutions moving to remote or distance learning, which have previously never needed to do so, to truly leverage collaborative tools in the most effective way for learning. This initiative, it explained, aims to "make this transition easier for academia and give them a head start to adopt and deploy remote learning with confidence."

“Education is key to helping people build a better life through the acquisition of knowledge, critical thinking and problem-solving skills that increases one’s chances of obtaining high quality jobs and opening up a sea of opportunities that might not have been available before. And now, the move to remote learning has made maintaining a high standard of education more important than it’s ever been,” commented Lillian Barnard, Microsoft South Africa Managing Director.  “This initiative forms part of our commitment as Microsoft, with the help of our partners, to empower every student and educator to achieve and become more, as well as our promise to act as an enabler for the development of the region,” she elaborated.

Microsoft will be launching this initiative with a number of local partners, including: Argantic, Cloud Company, Decision Inc, Mint Group, Moke Learning Technologies, Moyo, NB Consult, Scadco and SmartAcademy.

These partners have also come to the table,volunteering their time to help schools and teachers with training on Teams deployment and infrastructure, user training and support services, while also sharing best practices.

Microsoft’s education solutions, such as Teams, allow students to learn wherever they are and whenever they need to. Not only can content and assignments be accessed online, but students and teachers are able to interact in real time using these tools.

Any academic institution will be able to register for the free training online and thereafter will be able to select a partner from which they would like to receive training. Their details will then be sent to the partner who will coordinate a date and time to conduct the training session. Additionally, any Microsoft partner will be able to volunteer via the website or by reaching out to Microsoft to help drive training.

“Both educators and students need all the support they can to enable an engaging and connected learning environment while at home. Microsoft and our partners want to ensure that they have all the tools and resources needed to create collaborative classrooms when remote learning so as to encourage development and growth,” concluded Barnard.

For more information, interested parties can visit: https://www.microsoft.com/mea/edupartneroffer/southafrica/