Microsoft 365 for Education

Microsoft describes A1 as essential web-based productivity and collaboration for schools; A3 as building on that with desktop apps, device management and security for scalable IT; and A5 as delivering advanced security, analytics and governance for complex institutions. In practice most institutions we work with use a lower tier broadly and a higher tier for staff who need desktop Office and managed devices. Descriptions checked 21 September 2026.

Microsoft does not publish India education pricing on its education plan pages, and education licensing is tied to institutional eligibility rather than a public list price. We will not quote a figure here that we cannot source. What we do is confirm your eligibility with the distributor and come back with an actual quote in INR with GST against the tiers and headcount you need. Checked 21 September 2026.

Eligibility depends on being a qualifying educational institution, and it is verified by Microsoft rather than asserted by a reseller. Most recognised schools, colleges and universities qualify; training businesses and coaching centres frequently do not, regardless of how education-like the work is. We establish this before quoting, because a quote based on assumed eligibility is worthless.

Usually not. Staff producing timetables, reports and budgets generally need desktop Office and managed devices; students working in browsers on shared machines often do not. Mixing tiers is normal and supported, and it is typically the largest saving available to an institution.

With a documented annual process, decided before your first graduating cohort rather than during it. Bulk creation at intake, progression between cohorts, and a clear decision on what happens to accounts and files after a student leaves — how long they retain access, what is archived, what is deleted. Institutions without this accumulate thousands of stale accounts and lose any reliable sense of who is current.

These are configuration decisions, and the defaults are rarely appropriate for minors. Who students can message, whether they can share externally, whether they can create Teams, whether meetings can be recorded, and what staff can see and review. We work through these explicitly during setup because they are far harder to tighten after students have been using the system for a term.

Institutions do, and it is usually a historical accident rather than a plan — one department adopted one, another the other. It is workable but it doubles the administration, splits the identity story and confuses students. If you are in that position it is worth deciding deliberately which is primary. We implement both and have no stake in the answer.

Yes. Tech Geum is based in Kerala and works with institutions across India. Tenant setup, migration and administration are done remotely. The parts that benefit from same-timezone availability are the intake period and the first weeks of term, which is exactly when questions cluster.