+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Please find enclosed a press release concerning a letter
sent to the Government of Rajasthan for a tender floated by
the Government for the purchase of laptops pre-loaded with
proprietary software. The letter requests the government to
re-consider distribution of laptops to students without
appropriate teacher preparation, and to consider Free and
Open Source Software as a possible alternative to
proprietary software.
The tender document, press release (also produced below) and
the letter can be accessed from the following link:
http://itforchange.net/Letter_Rajasthan_government_Laptop_purchase_feb2013
Request you to kindly do the needful.
For
Immediate release
February
22, 2013
Eminent
educationists across the country have strongly
criticised the recent move of the Government
of Rajasthan to provide 112,000 laptops to
students, pre-loaded with proprietary software
applications such as Microsoft Office 2010
Professional and Adobe Acrobat Professional
and have written to the Education Minister
advising against this move. Dr Vinod Raina,
member of the Central Advisory Board of
Education, an advisory body to MHRD, said “The decision
of the Rajasthan Government violates the
National Policy on ICT in School Education
passed by the Central Advisory Board for
Education.” The National
ICT Policy clearly recommends the use of a
wide variety free and open source software
applications for its rich learning potential.
These
are many high quality FOSS alternatives to the
Adobe and Microsoft proprietary applications
specified in the bid document, and Gurumurthy
Kasinathan, Director of IT for Change said “the
government can save anywhere between 50 to 100
crore rupees on this laptop procurement by going
for FOSS”. The letter points out that large
states such as Kerala, Karnataka and Gujarat are
using these FOSS applications in their ICT
programmes in schools and their benefits have been
acknowledged by a CABE sub-committee on ICTs and
education. This committee has also pointed to the
danger of the “appropriateness of proprietary
software in terms of pedagogy, equity and larger
public interest... more so because information
about these technologies is mostly spread by their
vendors, whose major concern, understandably, is
to sell them more and more”.
The letter states
that apart from economic considerations, the
use of software that teachers cannot share or
modify based on local needs will be
educationally inadvisable. Dr Rohit Dhankar,
Digantar member of the National Curricular
Framework, 2005 focus group, said, 'Imagine a
carpenter who cannot sharpen or modify his
tools in any way. This person will be
totally governed in his work-style and
work-habits by the tool manufacturers; and
would almost be a slave to their ways of
thinking about how carpentry can be done.
Anyone using computers on a predetermined
set of unchangeable operating systems is
likely to be a bigger slave in ways of
thinking and using computers as the
software developers want him to do. Most
of us are slaves of these soft-ware
companies, and therefore, find it very
hard to imagine alternative ways.' The letter
also suggests that merely distributing
laptops to students is unlikely to have
significant benefits in the absence of
systemic preparation including teacher
training and local infrastructure
maintenance.
The
bid document of the Rajasthan Government as well
as the letter to the Minister are available on
http://itforchange.net/Letter_Rajasthan_government_Laptop_purchase_feb2013
Thanks and Regards,
Neeru
09916893596
--
Neeru Malhotra
Research
Assistant
IT for Change
In
special consultative status with the United
Nations ECOSOC
www.ITforChange.net
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