As Microsoft and Autodesk Friday signed MoUs with the All India Council for Technical Education for providing free software to engineering college students, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal pitched for giving such facilities to secondary school children as well.

"Empowerment is needed at school level. We are empowering few at the high end but if we give these technologies to the school children, it will be more beneficial," Sibal said after signing of the Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs).

AICTE Chairman S.S. Mantha signed MoUs with Autodesk Chief Education Officer Joe Asthroth and Microsoft General Manager - Developer Partner Evangelism Moorthy Uppaluri.

The step will benefit nearly 50 lakh students and over 3 lakh faculty all over the country as unique ID and passwords will be provided to them, enabling free download of the softwares.

"We have already provided unique IDs to institutes under AICTE and now are in the process of providing unique ID to students and faculty," Mantha said.

Sibal said the step will be more beneficial for the faculty than the students.

"Teachers are the most important target audience. We have a faculty shortage," he said.

Giving a brief on the upcoming initiatives, Mantha said more such proposals were being worked on with IT majors like IBM and Oracle.