Microsoft Partners in Learning celebrates 9 years of learning in Sri Lanka

Tuesday, 5 November 2013 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Closely following the global program’s 10th year anniversary of educating the world Microsoft Sri Lanka celebrated its ninth year of ‘Partners In Learning’ (PIL) in Sri Lanka, under which the company has initiated a number of programs to uplift local education, working closely with the Ministry of Education (MoE). It is significant that Microsoft Sri Lanka, although relatively small in comparison with some of the global giant’s international subsidiaries, introduced PIL almost from its very establishment in the country. Microsoft World widecelebrated their 10 years of PIL on 10 September 2013, while Microsoft Sri Lanka celebrates nine years of PIL, with programs such as Innovative Teachers and Innovative Schools under the initiative, becoming national level competitions; gaining island wide participation from both educators and students alike. Realising potential The concept of Microsoft’s ‘Partners in Learning’ is to help local educators and school leaders connect, collaborate, create and share, so that students and teachers can realise their full potential in educating and learning. Microsoft also provides professional development to government officials, school leaders, and educators to help them take new approaches to teaching and learning, helping students develop 21st century skills. The Innovative Teachers Competition, which became a national level contest with the assistance of the MoE, started nine years ago with just 125 entries. The competition had an impressive 90,000 entries from students and teachers in 2012. The impact of the competition has been felt across the island’s nine provinces aiding teachers and students from Grade 1-13 to hone their teaching and learning skills through ICT. The competition and programs being available inSinhala, Tamil and English has made it even more accessible to all schools. Innovative Teachers today has more than reached its initial goals of capacity building of teachers and overcoming mental fears they might have towards using technology. There have been over 250,000 lesson plans developed and teachers have access to www.pil-network.com that hosts free tools and curricula. From 2013 onwards teachers will compete at an international level by applying online. The Global Education Forums for Innovative Teachers brings together an entire community of educators from around the world. Over 75 Sri Lankan educators have participated in these events to-date, exposing them to innovations in education. On the student component, Microsoft is now working with the MoE to develop a new students’ competition, which will be more in line with the employability aspect and contain the required criteria. This is also in line with the national policy of creating a knowledge-based economy through making our future generation more employable and ready for today’s highly competitive job market.

Reaping results Already the work done under the PIL program is reaping results with teachers winning regional awards and some even generating income for their schools through their classes. Haseen Bawa, e-Mentor-Eastern Province and Teacher at the Muslim Madya Maha Vidyalaya at Samanthurai, one of the educators who participated in a Global Microsoft Teacher Forum says that his school benefitted greatly from the deeper understanding of innovative teaching and Learning Practices gained through the use of new technology and the exposure he received from exchanging views with 50 teachers from 31 countries on methods they used to educate better. “I learnt ways to weave 21st Century skills and knowledge into lessons and projects through the use of ICT tools in the classroom. Our school belongs to a rural area and we had limited, in fact no access to the use of IT in our day-to-day school work. Microsoft through their innovative teachers program not only gave us an opportunity to use ICT in schoolwork but also provided a valuable opening to extend ICT knowledge to the society. After the training we started ‘computer classes in school’. They are held on week day evenings as well as weekends. Both students and outsiders can participate at these classes according to their requirement. We conduct classes using the school computer lab and through this, have been able to generate a considerable income for the school. We basically focus on office tools, Auotcad and Graphics.” Great success Great success was also achieved in the Teacher Training programs under PIL, which focused especially on the Uva, East, Northern and Sabaragamuwa Provinces, resulting in 16,000 teachers being directly trained by the Microsoft program. Through their Mouse Mischief program, Microsoft with the support of the MoE installed computers in 300 rural schools that initially did not have a single computer. On average 150,000 students accessed a computer through this program. The schools selected by the MoE were each given a computer, projector and 30 mouse devices. The concept was to get the teachers to use the computer and projector for teaching, whilst students would have an interactive session by using their mouse devices. The success of the Innovative Schools program speaks for itself with two schools from Sri Lanka who participated in the program being ranked amongst the top schools in the world. Microsoft’s Innovative Pathfinder Schools help to transform education in a scalable, replicable way by influencing other schools within their own community, country, and around the world. The first school to apply and get selected was Colombo’s Royal College, followed by Rahula Balika Maha Vidyala, in Malabe. Representatives from the school attended the Global Forum in Brazil and Prague, becoming part of a one-year mentoring programme granted by Microsoft. In line with the Government’s 1,000 schools development project Microsoft Sri Lanka launched DreamSpark providing schools with developer software at no cost. Furthermore Microsoft’s Shape the Future project provides the Windows Operating System and Microsoft Office 2013 to Government schools at a fraction of the cost in order for them to achieve their broad scale digital access goals. Most inspiring company Globally the software giant’s involvement in their communities has not gone unnoticed, as Microsoft was voted number one on the list of America’s 25 most inspiring companies. The list was compiled by Performance Inspired, Inc., a consulting and training firm that helps organisations elevate performance through the science of inspiration, surveyed 4,738 consumers. The online survey asked respondents which five companies they find most inspirational and why, and Microsoft topped that list. Following the foundation laid by Microsoft’s Head Quarters, Microsoft Sri Lanka continues the tradition of giving back to the community through their Partners in Learning projects, aiming to create a knowledge hub by equipping Lankan students and teachers with 21st century skills.