Friends
The latest (third) ICT in school education policy draft is available on
http://education.nic.in/secedu/sec_school.asp
This is a revision over the second draft released in July 2009
(available with our comments on
http://internal.itforchange.net/sites/default/files/ITfC/Detailed_Comments.pdf)
While the second draft explicitly favoured free and open source
software, the latest draft is silent on this aspect in this relevant
section 5.3, instead, using a 'total cost of ownership' argument which
is a red herring drawn by proprietary vendors to justify payment of
license fees.
Since ICTs need to be seen as educational resources, allowing for use of
proprietary educational resources (in the form of proprietary software)
would be detrimental to public system and antithetical to the principles
for educational resources used in any other case. Education system needs
to mandate the use of free software and this omission is wrong. We need
to write formally to MHRD in this regard.
Please share the document in your networks. Look forward to your
comments. Since the last date for comments is 15 april, we have very
little time, so please do share your feedback with MHRD.
regards
Guru
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