Partners in Learning Case Studies

These case studies show how schools, local education authorities, and Ministries of Education across EMEA are working with Microsoft as part of the Partners in Learning initiative to boost IT literacy, create the infrastructure for digital inclusion, and improve teachers' ICT skills.

On This Page

	Enabling Leadership
	Planning for Digital Inclusion
	Developing 21st Century Skills
	Delivering Innovative Solutions

Enabling Leadership

Egypt
Pilot programme shows that Passion for Innovation can take Teachers a long way
One of the main objectives of the Egyptian Ministry of Education (MoE) is to raise the level of ICT literacy in Egypt’s 36 000 schools. To this end, the MoE has partnered with Microsoft to launch an Innovative Teachers Programme with two aims: first, to provide suitable teachers with the skills to develop multimedia teaching tools; and second, to provide a much larger number of teachers with Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) skills.

Bulgaria
Solid Partnership Edges Bulgaria Closer to the Creation of a Sustainable Knowledge-Based Economy
The Bulgarian government has started an ambitious project to transform the education sector, called i-Bulgaria and backed by an investment of €72 million. The project aims to increase computer and Internet literacy and access throughout the country. Microsoft Bulgaria has worked with the government and a consortium of partners to fuel this change, and train teachers in the use of ICT through its Partners in Learning initiative.

Bahrain
Bahrain Gears up to Create the Schools of the Future
In 2004 the King of Bahrain launched a Schools of the Future project, with the aim of creating a single school network served by a central e-learning portal, transforming the traditional classroom into an open, interactive environment based on a wide-ranging use of technology.

Yemen
Yemen Ministry of Education Takes the Lead in ICT Teacher Training
The Ministry of Education in Yemen is overcoming the challenges of a rural infrastructure to provide its students with access to computers and ICT skills, starting with a sustainable plan to train teachers in computer literacy and help them add computer courses to the curriculum.

Pakistan
Using Technology to Transform Teaching in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas - FATA
The Pakistan Ministry of Education, in partnership with Microsoft, has begun to update its secondary school ICT curriculum, and to create a network of centres where teachers receive intensive training in the latest classroom technologies.

Kenya
Kenyan Partnership Leads National Drive to Use ICT in Education
Microsoft has helped the Kenyan government develop a National Education information communications technology (ICT) Strategy blueprint and grant more than U.S.$80,000 of contributions for initiatives in schools, through the Kenya ICT Trust Fund, a private-public partnership including Microsoft® Partners in Learning.

Israel
Israeli schools get ready for a technological future
To prepare its youth to be competitive in the global knowledge-based economy, Microsoft helped the Israeli Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport to develop two ICT curricula, supported by innovative teacher training methods.

Planning for Digital Inclusion

Spain
Rural Primary School Uses Wireless Internet to Transform Teaching and Learning
Ariño School has raised educational standards and improved motivation amongst children by giving them access to online research, and interactive learning tools.

Estonia
Estonian Businesses Respond to Special-Needs Schools
Microsoft Estonia, in partnership with the Estonian Information Technology College, collected used PC's from various Estonian businesses, refurbished them, and donated them to various schools catering for special-needs children.

France
French Kindergarten Proves that You Are Never Too Young to Start Using Information Technology
The Microsoft Fresh Start programme is vital for schools such as the Ecole Maternelle des Bois. It provides them with free licensed copies of a Windows operating system for every donated computer they receive.

Serbia
Serbian Teachers Get the Support they Need, With the Help of Microsoft
Partners in Learning helped the Institute for Improvement of Education and Upbringing to encourage teachers, especially those newly trained in using computers, to use ICT in innovative ways in the classroom or in developing lessons.

Romania
Opening the Gateway to E-learning for Romanian Teachers
The Romanian Association for Educational Resources (ARRE) aims to improve knowledge of, and access to, teaching resources. Microsoft supports ARRE’s aims by sponsoring its national conference for educational software, and providing further support for local ICT development.

United Kingdom
A First for UK Trainee Teachers: Anytime, Anywhere Access to Best-Practice Resources
The UK’s Training and Development Agency for Schools is launching an e-library service that will raise the status of teacher-training research and drive the professional development of over 45,000 teacher trainers and student teachers in England. Users have easy online access to quality teaching resources and to the knowledge they need to inform their teaching practice.

Developing 21st Century Skills

Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan builds basic understanding of ICT in education
Kazakhstan’s Republican Institute for Improving Qualification Standards for Teachers and Educators aims to find practical ways to develop the information technology knowledge of all educators at primary and secondary level. Microsoft is working with the Institute to integrate the courses of the Partners in Learning curriculum into the Institute's teacher-improvement plans

Ukraine
Pioneering Distance-Learning Course Ends Technical Hitches for Ukrainian Schools
A state-wide Ukrainian programme to implement information technology in secondary schools was being hampered by a lack of funding for technical staff. The answer was to create a highly interactive distance-learning course jointly developed by The Ukrainian Institute of Information Technologies in Education, together with the Microsoft Partners in Learning team.

Slovakia
Slovakian Teachers Get More Tools for Innovation in the Classroom
Slovakia has become the 13th country to be part of the Microsoft Partners in Learning programme. A range of projects are being funded, including the Innovative Teachers Programme, which build on the existing INFOVEK initiatives.

Egypt
Egypt Plants the Seed That Will Grow Into a Flourishing ICT Community
The Egyptian Ministry of Education and Ministry of Communications and Information Technology plan to provide 25,000 school children with training in software development. This will lead to a community of high-calibre developers to ensure the advancement of Egypt's IT industry, enrich the country's economy and turn Egypt into an international IT hub.

Latvia
Latvian Schools Work Hard to Succeed in Golden Ant Competition
Microsoft is the co-organiser of the Golden Ant Competition in Latvia, which aims to provide children with important IT skills through Web page development.

Slovenia
Slovenian Vocational Students to Benefit from Microsoft Networking Course
The Microsoft Partners in Learning course, Understanding and Building Basic Networks, was perfectly suited to the needs of two mechatronics subjects. School Center Ptuj translated and incorporated the course into its mechatronics curriculum, saving many hours of preparation and development time.

Hungary
Hungarian Government Rolls Out Educational IT Training to 1,500 Schools Nationwide
The Hungarian Ministry of Informatics and Communication is actively working on initiatives to bridge the digital divide in the country. This includes developing technological infrastructure for schools including assistance in acquiring and maintaining computers, software, and Internet capabilities. Part of the strategy to achieve this is working with Microsoft through the Partners in Learning Programme.

Namibia
Refurbishment Programme Bears Unexpected Fruit: Namibia's First Vocational IT Course
The establishment of a Microsoft IT Academy at the Windhoek Vocational Training Centre underlines the philosophy of Microsoft's Partners in Learning initiative, providing the resources and expertise to set up a sustainable partnership that will improve access to ICT skills for Namibian students into the future.

Finland
City of Tampere Inspires Schools to Get Serious About Online Safety
For Finland’s National Security Day, the Microsoft Partners in Learning initiative worked with the City of Tampere’s educational authority to train head teachers in online safety for more than 21,000 primary and secondary school children.

Greece
Boosting Online Competition for Greek Students
Doukas School is the main organiser of a national competition to promote Internet awareness and use among Greek students. Microsoft supported the school by helping organise the 2005 event, and broadening its scope to be more engaging.

Latvia
Latvian Teachers Find that 10,000 Heads are Better than One
10,000 of Latvia's teachers now benefit from a place to meet and share ideas. The Innovative Teachers portal hosts user-submitted teaching materials, IT courses for teachers, a wide range of discussion forums, and other useful educational materials. The portal is sponsored by the Microsoft Partners in Learning initiative in accordance with the Memorandum signed with Latvia's Ministry of Education and Science. It is developed, hosted, and operated by the Ventspils Digital Centre.

Delivering Innovative Solutions

Czech Republic
Czech Principals Take Interactive Message on Board
Prague's Junior Language School is a government accredited centre for training teachers in the use of IT in the classroom. Partners in Learning has brought a new dimension by introducing new tools, such as Microsoft Class Server.

Portugal
Azores Classrooms Served Well by Microsoft Class Server
Microsoft, in partnership with the Regional Directorate of Education for the Azores, has started a Class Server project. Using this learning management platform, it has helped remotely located schools within the Azores by providing teachers with a single interface to create, deliver and grade lessons and assessments over the Web. Parents can also use the platform to track the progress of their children.

Morocco
Moroccan School Teachers Prove They Can Enhance Learning Through ICT Innovation
As part of a government initiative to introduce ICT into schools over the next three years, Morocco's Ministry of Education wanted to identify teachers who could find creative ways to bring ICT into the average Moroccan classroom.

Lithuania
School Teachers in Lithuania Prove they Can Innovate with Information Technology
Through an innovative teachers competition, Microsoft helped the Ministry Of Education and Science identify close to 200 teachers, and made their work available to other teachers through a web portal.

Czech Republic
Czech School Seizes the E-Learning Opportunity with Class Server
Supported by Partners in Learning, Na Trebesine school is using Microsoft® Class Server 4.0 to create and deliver e-learning materials, administer and grade tests, and improve collaboration between teachers and students.

Luxembourg
Microsoft Encarta Proves Most Popular with Luxembourg Schoolchildren
The mySchool! Web portal offers a single, centralized educational resource to Luxembourg’s primary and secondary school children. When the mySchool! Team wanted to add a safe, reliable online encyclopedia to its resources, it turned to Microsoft Encarta.

Netherlands
Netherlands Schools Use the Learning Gateway Solution to Improve Collaboration in Education
The SKOZOK school board governs 33 primary schools in the region of Kempen in the Netherlands. It implemented the Microsoft Learning Gateway solution, in just a few weeks, to manage communication and collaboration at a seminar for head teachers and education experts.