Many employers expect employees to have some basic knowledge of Word, PowerPoint and Excel, yet many school leavers have not had an opportunity to acquire these skills. Microsoft, in partnership with the Gauteng Department of eGovernment, is on a mission to train one million young people with basic Microsoft Office skills to increase their chances of finding employment and to upskill workers and learners.
In a previous post we encouraged youth to access ThintiMillion and to complete the free online training – however many young people don’t have access to computers and can’t easily get to a Gauteng library or community centre where they can complete the course at no cost. To spread the reach of ThintiMillion, Microsoft recently released an app version of the materials so that youth with no access to a computer can still learn more about basic productivity tools using a smart phone.
If you are interested in boosting your own digital skills or looking for a way to get a Microsoft branded certificate that certifies you have basic computer skills, download the ThintiMillion app from the Google Playstore to try out the materials on an Android phone. As a teacher, you may also want to encourage your learners to work thorough the materials in their computer literacy lessons so that they will have proof of basic computer skills before heading for the workplace or tertiary institutions.
Whilst the ThintiMillion app and training materials provide a good introduction to key productivity programmes, and let users take a quiz and print a certificate to show that they know the basics, they do not actually provide opportunities to use Word, PowerPoint or Excel. The best way to master using digital tools is to actually use them – so in addition to downloading the app, please encourage young people to register for Mahala Microsoft Office and register for a free Microsoft account if you are a teacher. We then hope that you will practice using the productivity tools to type documents that you may need. You can find out more about this in our previous post.
