By Emeka Aginam
Committed to empowering public schools teachers in with IT tool and knowledge, Microsoft Nigeria in partnership the Lagos State government, Deux Project Limited and Infographics last week celebrated no fewer than 43  public school teachers who successfully completed a 2-week Digital Literacy and Microsoft Office training course under the Lagos State IT Academy/ Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance, (MSDNAA) pilot progamme.

Left - Right: Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Mrs. Sarah Sosan and Development Platform Manager, Microsoft Nigeria, Mr. Ken Spann at the presentation IT Academy Certificates to teachers. Photo by Emeka Aginam.

The training which is under Microsoft IT Academy programme, have the participating teachers drawn from Birch Freeman High School, Agidingbi Grammar School, and Gaskiya Secondary School respectively.

By completion of this training, the participants have become certified Microsoft IT Academies, thereby given them skills and tools needed to train students on Microsoft technologies and prepare them for global competitiveness, create a skilled community, under the Microsoft IT Academy programme.

The Microsoft IT Academy provides over 175 eLearning courses to students wanting to advance their software knowledge with Microsoft providing free email and collaboration tools for facilitation.

In addition to this, programme is expected to create academic learning environment for the students thereby exposing them the challenges ahead.

Earlier in his speech, Microsoft Nigeria Development Platform Manager, Ken Spann, reaffirmed Microsoft commitment to make Nigeria an IT capable country in the knowledge economy.

“We are committed to the growth and development of Nigerian technology. Nigerian market is very important to Microsoft. We will continue to support the market with the latest technologies available in the market” Spann said, adding that the program offers world-class IT curriculum to the participants.

Also speaking, the Lagos State Deputy Governor, Sarah Sosan with optimism noted that the State government would increase IT budget by next year as a result of the role IT is playing in developing societies.
“ We are committed to creating change in our educational sector.

We are determined to provide not only good and conducive learning environment, but also build young men and women with knowledge and skills that will make them economically productive and self-reliant. We are happy to partner Microsoft in IT academy. It is our dream to be IT capable state in the 21st century knowledge society” she said

The Deputy governor while commending Microsoft for the laudable program told the gathering that IT education is the only thing that can a nation survive the global competitiveness.

Excited by the IT Academy certification, one of the participating teachers who pleaded anonymous told Vanguard CyberLIFE that the program has made him a person. “I can now use the skills and knowledge gained from the program to train the student for the challenges ahead: he said.

It would be recalled that following the meeting with joint representatives of the Ministries of Education and Science and Technology early last month, and meeting with the Principal and Staff of the representative pilot schools on Tuesday, 10th August, 2010, too, IT training project was commenced on Monday, August 23, 2010 starting with the Agidingbi secondary school.

At the meeting with the representative pilot schools on the Tuesday, 10th August, 2010, IT training needs assessment was conducted to determine the level of digital literacy amongst the teachers through an ICT assessment based on the Microsoft Digital” Literacy Curriculum (DLe) using the Agilix BrainHoney LMS application on networked Onyx notebooks.