Every student in Bulgaria can use the Microsoft Officesuite for free on up to 5 devices

Every student in Bulgaria can use a licensed Microsoft Office suite on up to 5 devices. 67 500 teachers also have this opportunity, reports the Ministry of Education and Science. This is part of the contract between the Ministry of Education and Science and Microsoft.

The ministry’s project is one of the biggest worldwide. During the meeting of the Minister of Education and Science and Prof. Galin Tsokov with the director of “Microsoft Bulgaria” Kalin Dimchev, it was also stated that more than 1 million licenses for students and teachers were paid for. This data was provided by the company.

Minister Tsokov emphasised the company’s quick response during the COVID-19 pandemic to make online education possible. “As a team, the digitalisation of the school system is a priority, and we want to study the best examples globally and discuss how to implement them in the country.”, explained the Minister. He also added that partnerships with leading companies are the key to success in this sphere.

Kalin Dimchev and Gergana Ruseva from Microsoft introduced Minister Tsokov and his team to the newest innovations, some of which are currently being developed. According to the company, the most recent technologies, including artificial intelligence, can make the teachers’ jobs much easier. AI can help them with creating and structuring content, as well as with providing personalised education and analysing every student’s improvement. For example, after the analysis, it can determine what the student should pay more attention to when studying. The purpose of this is to save the teacher’s time, not to replace them.

This technology would also be used in higher education to synthesise data from bases like “Elzevir”. This way, the student would spend less time searching for verified information, and it would help prevent using AI. The technology can also detect plagiarism when checking the works of undergraduates and PhD students. In this meeting,the Deputy Minister of Education and Science, Nataliya Miteva also participated.

Translation: Malena Petrova