MICROSOFT TEAMS WITH DEPARTMENT OF
EDUCATION TO INSPIRE FUTURE TEACHERS
~ Educators Gather
to Celebrate Innovative Technology in the Classroom
~
November 2011
(Washington, DC) -- Educators
are the foundation of a strong educational system and
at Microsoft's Partners in Learning Global Forum, the
company has announced a collaboration with the U.S.
Department of Education to support a campaign aimed
at inspiring and recruiting young people to enter the
teaching profession.
As part of this collaboration,
Microsoft will assume responsibility for managing and
supporting the website www.teach.gov,
aimed at bringing a new generation of teachers into
the classroom. In the coming months, Microsoft will
transition the site to teach.org and will be actively
recruiting corporate partners to further support the
campaign by forming a coalition of other private sector
companies that care deeply about education, and seek
to change the discussion about how to reform education
in the U.S.
In the United States, as
many as one million teachers are expected to retire
in the next five years, presenting a tremendous opportunity.
However, in a diverse economy where long-term personal
incentives are heavily skewed toward the business sector,
attracting the best and brightest to a career in the
classroom has presented a new kind of challenge. Additionally,
almost half of all teachers in the U.S. leave the profession
within the first five years, many citing that they feel
a lack of support.
The world is quickly changing
and the United States must keep up. Consider these statistics:
-
Fewer than 15 percent of U.S. college undergraduates
are currently pursuing degrees in science or engineering,
compared to more than 30 percent in India and more
than 40 percent in China;
-
77% of jobs in the next decade will require technology
skills; and
-
Projections show that by 2018, we will see a shortage
of three million workers with U.S. college degrees,
associates or higher.
With the UN projecting a
need for eight million teachers around the world by
2015, Microsoft wants to help. The Partners in Learning
program is one of the many investments Microsoft is
making to help educators more effectively prepare students
for the jobs of tomorrow.
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