Microsoft Elevate for Educators: a global community, free AI literacy training and credentials for teachers and school leaders
Microsoft Elevate for Educators brings together three things: a global professional community of educators, free training and recognised credentials, and always-on capacity building. It helps K-12 teachers, school leaders and administrators adopt AI responsibly — easing administrative workload and supporting more personalised, inclusive learning — while connecting them to peers doing the same work in other schools and other countries. Delivered locally through a network of certified training partners.
About This Offer
Education systems worldwide are being asked to prepare young people for an economy reshaped by AI, often without the budget, curriculum or teacher training to do it. Microsoft Elevate for Educators addresses that gap directly by building capability inside the education system itself, at no cost to schools, ministries or individual teachers. The programme is built on a single shared curriculum aligned to the AI Literacy (AILit) Framework developed by the European Commission and the OECD. Aligning to an established international standard rather than a proprietary one means participating education systems can map the training to their own national frameworks and recognise it alongside existing professional development. Educators progress through a structured learning journey — Explorer to Expert to Certified — leading to an AI Literacy for Educators credential. The same content is delivered three ways: self-paced online, live virtual, or in person, so ministries and schools can choose the delivery mode that suits their connectivity and staffing. Participants join a tiered global community (Explorer, Expert, Fellow) with ongoing programming and a peer-to-peer discussion space. Community is a core part of the offer rather than a supplement to it. Participating educators join a tiered global community — Explorer, Expert and Fellow — with always-on programming, a peer-to-peer discussion space, quarterly calls and a regular newsletter. The tiers give educators a visible path of recognition: an educator who develops expertise can progress to Expert and ultimately Fellow, taking on a role as a trusted advocate for responsible AI use within their own school system. This matters for capacity building. Training alone tends to decay once a course ends; a standing community keeps educators connected to peers facing the same classroom realities, gives them somewhere to take questions long after the training is finished, and builds a local cohort of credible advocates inside the education system itself. For ministries and school systems, this is the difference between a one-off training intervention and a professional network that sustains itself. Local delivery runs through Global Training Partners — certified organisations operating in-market who deliver the training in local languages and contexts. This is the mechanism that makes the offer a capacity-building one rather than a content drop: the partner network builds a durable in-country training capability that persists beyond any single cohort. Higher-education faculty may access the programme, though the primary audience is K-12. Who it is for
- K-12 teachers
- School leaders and administrators
- Instructional technologists and coaches
- Ministries of education and school systems seeking a structured teacher AI-literacy pathway
Limitations
Available at no cost to all Educators.
Have a capacity building offer to share?
U.S. government agencies, allied governments, private sector companies, and international organizations are invited to submit offers for inclusion in the library. All submissions are reviewed for alignment with Trade Over Aid principles.