American technology company, Microsoft has organised an education leaders event in Accra to address the digital transformation of education across the globe.
The event, supported by Zepto Ghana Ltd, Point of View and Africa Schools Online, brought together Heads of Institutions, Directors of IT, Teachers and actors in the education sector to appreciate how Microsoft’s latest technologies and education tools can help institutions save money, attract students, and aid teaching and learning globally.
Speaking on the sidelines of the event, an education director of Microsoft in the Middle East, Jaye Richard Mills, said it was vital that educational institutions employ ‘real-world’ teaching and learning methods in order for the youth to better translate what they study into their daily lives.
“I think the challenge as students is that you come into university or college expecting it to be reflective of the life that you live outside, and what you very often find [that isn’t the case]. We need to make better connections between education and real life outside,” she said.
“So I think the purpose of today is to talk about windows and Microsoft in education, and what Microsoft is doing around the world to encourage the grown of the skills driven agenda in our schools and universities.”
According to her, the world had shifted from knowledge acquisition to a greater focus on skills and capacity development.
“[There’s] a fundamental shift from pure knowledge and acquisition to very much skill for 21st-century life. The skill that you need to take your place in the 21st-century information age, are the types of skills that you need to acquire during education.”
The event saw the unveiling of some new software like Microsoft 365 Education, which combines the essentials of the Windows 10 platform all within a simplified licensing framework for better and easy learning, Office 365 for productivity and collaboration and Enterprise Mobility Suite for security and management.
Jaye Richard Mills also said the programs are meant to better education and equip the young to be able to face and adapt to the technological age, which is at the heart of Microsoft.
“Microsoft is about supporting educators, and supporting them on a journey to improving their skills, and we do that through the various programs that we have for training which you will find on our Microsoft.com/education site, and also in the teams that we have working around the world to develop our software.
“So for Microsoft this is very much about supporting educators to deliver quality education that speaks for purposes in this 21 century information age,” she added.
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By: Ann-Shirley Ziwu/citifmonline.com/Ghana