The worldwide launch of Microsoft’s Student Advantage program now allows teachers to offer Office 365 to their students for free. The initiative will allow teachers to help their students prepare for the technological demands of the modern workplace. The program was announced in October, and with the latest announcement on Microsoft’s blog, the Student Advantage program has been opened up to 35,000 schools and colleges worldwide.

Students are uniquely placed to derive the benefits. If their educational institution signs up and uses a license for the Office 365 ProPlus or Office Professional Plus (for official use by staff and faculty), they can now give the same access to students, without paying any extra fees. Microsoft Office is still the most popular productivity suite around the world, and its omnipresence makes it ideal for students to familiarize themselves with the basic skills.

With the cloud-based Office 365, administrative staff in educational institutes are also free from the hassles of updating the Office suite and students are kept abreast with the latest version. Every job today, requires familiarity with basic computer tasks and MS Office skills are commonly advertised – especially, Word and PowerPoint. As Microsoft says,

Because Office is such a highly valued skillset with employers, students who use Office 365 will have the most up-to-date versions of the productivity tools they need to excel in the classroom and the workforce.

The Student Advantage program allows Microsoft to make a significant contribution to education as well as ingrain the use of its products on the future generation of professionals. It is a win-win situation for everyone involved. What do you think?

Source: Microsoft Office Blog | Image Credit: Pixabay