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newbie2
September 18th, 2007, 08:10 PM
T’PURAM: Free software has been made mandatory for IT practicals of SSLC examination slated for March, 2008.

The Director of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued orders making free software compulsory. It says Linux Operating System should be used for IT education in eighth, ninth and tenth standards.

Till last year, schools had the freedom to conduct the examinations either in free software or in Microsoft platform.

For the purpose, fully Linuxbased text books have been prepared for standard X and Linux-based supplementary text books have been prepared for standard VIII and standard IX.

Text books for the purpose have been prepared by SCERT and Free Software Foundation of India under the guidance of IT@school project.

The DPI has also decided to initiate various programmes for popularising free software.

As part of it, various programmes were arranged to observe International Software Freedom Day on Saturday.

A small introductory lecture will be delivered in the school assemblies across the state on Monday, followed by a pledge. An outline of the introductory lecture and the pledge have been circulated to the schools.

A digital painting competition for students of eighth standard will be conducted on the day using TUX paint, XPaint and GIMP software.

The topic of the painting competition will be ‘my school and surrounding.’

A presentation competition using Open Office Impress will be conducted for students of ninth and tenth standard in the topic ‘IT and its benefits to the common man.’

Both the competitions will be of one and half hour duration. The prize winning paintings will be compiled at the State -level and uploaded on the website www.education.kerala.gov.in.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEO20070916044016&Page=O&Headline=Free+software+made+mandatory%3A+IT+practi cals+of+SSLC+Exam&Title=Thiruvananthapuram&Topic=0
:popcorn:

anemptygun
September 18th, 2007, 08:15 PM
Wow thats excellent! We need to do that here!

WiFi Ed
September 18th, 2007, 08:15 PM
"The Director of Public Instruction (DPI) has issued orders making free software compulsory."

I guess it all depends on how you define "free"....

mostwanted
September 18th, 2007, 08:17 PM
Seems like it's just in Kerala though (30 million inhabitants), not the whole of India.

ingis
September 18th, 2007, 10:07 PM
Wow thats excellent! We need to do that here!
We try to make that happen in Lithuania, but now there is all most no results. Many schools get "free" software from MS... and do not care about any thing.

Somenoob
September 18th, 2007, 10:41 PM
If it's required by law than it's quite ironic. Even RMS would believe in freedom of choice when it comes to software.

Lord Illidan
September 18th, 2007, 10:47 PM
That's it. Moving to India tomorrow!

I think I can understand the reasoning behind making free software compulsory.

1. Ethically, free software is great! And having your kids learn a good philosophy from the start is also good.
2. Standards like ODF will be truly crossplatform and free, not some de facto standard which can only be used on a subset of computers, DRM encumbered, and to top it all, propietary.

Having a choice between free software and propietary sounds attractive, but it is a choice which MS will exploit, either by selling Windows at a very low price or else free, and thus keeping the region under its control, as it has done in Malta.