The Hyderabad-based Sri Chaitanya Schools (SCS) is one of the country’s first K-12 education networks to adopt Microsoft’s edu-cloud, an IT-based solution for teachers and students, in the group’s 80 schools.
Under an agreement signed in Hyderabad on May 5 between Microsoft India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based Microsoft Inc (annual revenue: $86.83 billion or Rs.547,906 crore) and SCS, 14,000 Windows-powered tablets will be used by teachers and students of SCS to access enriched content from the Microsoft cloud to make teaching and learning more engaging and productive.
Explaining the rationale of choosing Microsoft India as the group’s partner, Dr. B.S. Rao, founder-chairman of Sri Chaitanya Educational Institutions said: “We believe that digital experiences will equip our students with 21st century skills. The world over, teaching and learning has been transformed by the use of new digital technology. Microsoft’s education cloud infrastructure is the best-in-class. We are proud to have enabled our teachers and students to use it to enhance their learning and teaching.”
Under the agreement, students of Sri Chaitanya Schools will be able to freely access MS Office365 from their tablets and use Powerpoint, Word, Excel, OneDrive, OneNote, SharePoint and new software such as Office Mix and Sway. In addition, teachers can use the Mobiliya learning management solution, and 1,000 teachers will receive training under Microsoft’s Partners in Learning programme.
STIR shortlisted for WISE Awards
STIR Education (Schools and Teachers Innovating for Results), a social enterprise building teacher networks in India and Uganda, has been shortlisted for the WISE Awards 2015.
Instituted by the Qatar Foundation in 2009 under the leadership of chairperson, Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the WISE Awards identify and promote the most innovative and effective solutions to education challenges around the world.
“We appreciate the jury’s recognition of the contribution of our 10,000 teacher changemakers working in India and Uganda, who have the courage to lead this movement of change in their classrooms and communities,” says Sharath Jeevan, the London-based founder-chief executive of STIR Education. By 2017, STIR expects to have 30,000 teacher changemakers impacting 1 million children.
Fifteen WISE Awards finalist projects will be evaluated by a jury of internationally recognised education experts, of whom six will bag awards and a prize money purse of $20,000 at the seventh World Innovation Summit for Education, in early November in Doha, Qatar. The best project will win a prize money award of $1 million.
MISB Bocconi-Future Group programmes
MISB Bocconi, the B-school of Universita Bocconi, Italy, has launched its IEMB (International Executive Masters in Business) with specialisation in design management programme in India in partnership with the Mumbai-based Future Group, which pioneered modern retail in India 20 years ago. This unique programme combines the Future Group’s Indian business expertise with MISB, Bocconi’s global academic rigour.
Addressing the media in Mumbai on May 26, Veronica Vecchi, executive education director, MISB Bocconi and professor of business-government relations at SDA Bocconi, said: “The MISB Bocconi executive Masters programme brings the Bocconi international faculty to India. It offers value for money and an opportunity to step up to a global career.”
Applicants for the IEMB and IEMB design management study programmes must have a minimum of five years full-time work experience. Both are weekend programmes spread over 18 months.
Isa Award for Samanta
Dr. Achyuta Samanta, the Bhubaneswar (Odisha)-based educationist and promoter-trustee of KIIT University and the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS, the largest boarding school worldwide with 20,000 K-Ph D students), will be conferred the Isa Award for Service to Humanity — the highest civilian award of the Kingdom of Bahrain — at a special ceremony on June 3. The award, which includes a 21k gold medal and $1 million cash prize, will be presented by His Majesty King Hamad of Bahrain.
This transnational award has been instituted to create awareness of “extraordinary humanitarian endeavours across the world” and to “inspire more people to achieve excellence in humanitarian accomplishment”.
According to Bahrain’s deputy prime minister and chairman of the board of trustees of the Isa Award, Sheikh Mohammed bin Al Khalifa, Samanta has been working relentlessly for the uplift of the poor indigenous tribal communities of Odisha for the past two and a half decades. “His passion led him to establish Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), a free residential institute for 25,000 tribal children. He also founded KIIT, a group of professional institutes, to make this social enterprise sustainable through a unique and innovative financial model,” he says.
The Isa Award has been instituted after the late Amir Shaik Isa Bin Salman-Al Khalifa, former ruler of Bahrain, and recipients of the award are chosen by an expert panel representing each continent chaired by Swedish educationist Jan Paulsson.
Two years ago, Dr. Samanta was conferred EducationWorld’s ‘Lifetime Achievement in Education Leadership Award 2013’.