*Dear friends at Free Software Foundation,* I am a volunteer educator supporting the www.wikieducator.org project that aims at free and open education curriculum by 2015. I am also a supporter of Free Software movement. I have also participated in the recently concluded FSFS conference at Thiruvanthapuram, Kerala which was a great success in developing commitment in the minds of each and every participant for *'Free Software, Free Society'*. In this backdrop, I would like to share the following thoughts about Free Software education with the friends at FSF as well as WikiEducator community.
I think that one of the major aspects that adversely affects the pace of the spread of Free Software options, is the lack of awareness that is caused by the absence of the formal pedagogical systems that promote the teaching and learning of FOSS in most parts of the globe. However some Governments and academic institutions have already started to promote the same, for example in Kerala Governemnt has introduced Free Software education in the General Education Sector. Such initiatives in the different parts of the world are required to be made a general trend. As a first step, a facility may be established to maintain a repository of the details of such best practices from the different parts of the world to be collected through free software communities and collaborating organizations. Organized efforts are required to ensure that free software education is getting consideration in the National Curricula or National Qualifications Frameworks of different countries. To make it happen, the Free Software communities may, in collaboration with Academic Bodies and Academicians, regularly try to develop, update and maintain curricula for different levels of education so that the academic bodies/universities can adopt the same to their qualification frameworks and curricula. The Higher Education Sector requires setting up of technical qualification frameworks for Free Software education to enable academic bodies to run professional certification as well as graduation and research courses on FOSS. It may also explore the possibilities, in collaboration with Academic Bodies and Academicians, to run technical courses under Free, Open and Online Distance Learning system – which is going to be the leading education system for the future. I think it will be the ideal choice for the theme 'Free Software, Free Society'. -- *Warm regards* ** Anil Prasad http://wikieducator.org/User:Anil_Prasad http://wikieducator.org/India http://wikieducator.org/Qualification_Framework http://wikieducator.org/Qualification_Framework/Professional_Education/Management/MHRM --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
