Petition for mandating use of Free and Open Source in New Education Policy Draft circulated by Government of India
For the first time, the Government of India is embarking on a time-bound grassroots consultative process, which will enable the Ministry of HRD to reach out to individuals across the country through over 2.75 lakh direct consultations while also taking input from citizens online.
Here is the draft policy http://mhrd.gov.in/nep-new
In reference to this, we find it strange that the government has not included the mandate for schools to use Free and Open Source Software. Not only is Free Software cost effective, there are many other benefits.
Quoting the pioneer of Free Software, Richard Stallman,
"Free software permits students to learn how software works. Some students, natural-born programmers, on reaching their teens yearn to learn everything there is to know about their computer and its software. They are intensely curious to read the source code of the programs that they use every day.
Proprietary software rejects their thirst for knowledge: it says, “The knowledge you want is a secret—learning is forbidden!” Proprietary software is the enemy of the spirit of education, so it should not be tolerated in a school, except as an object for reverse engineering.
Free software encourages everyone to learn. The free software community rejects the “priesthood of technology”, which keeps the general public in ignorance of how technology works; we encourage students of any age and situation to read the source code and learn as much as they want to know."
The GOI having taken cognisance of the matter has initiated a policy to use and promote FOSS, thru DIETY.
Link to the policy document: http://deity.gov.in/content/free-and-open-source-software
To quote DIETY
"FOSS is stipulated by a liberal licensing policy that makes it possible to be obtained free of charge along with the source code, which can be modified by the user as per requirements. Advantages like increasing interoperability, developing local capacity/ industry, reducing costs, achieving vendor independence, enabling localization, reducing piracy/copyright infringements and increasing growth of knowledge-based society are among the compelling reasons for adopting FOSS. India’s strength in Information Technology can be utilized to develop products using FOSS which will help in bridging the digital divide with significant cost savings and facilitate the creation of a knowledge society. Indian industry/SMEs can benefit from the liberal licensing norms of FOSS which enables software to be freely modified and distributed."
Further, there are exemplary examples of the use of FOSS in education in several states in India. Kerala is an outstanding example.
"IT@School Project has successfully rolled out several programmes which included the development of its own Operating System - IT@School GNU/Linux- which is now being used in all the schools in the state. Apart from this, several educational softwares like Dr. Geo, Rasmol, K-Tech lab, Geogebra, Chemtool, Kalcium etc are being extensively customised by the Project in developing teacher friendly applications for facilitating complete ICT enabled education in the state. The Project has also prepared interactive multimedia CDs, Handbooks & Training modules for ICT, as well as Text books for IT in standard 8, 9 and 10. Every content developed by the Project is strictly as per the new curriculum approach based on the National Curriculum Framework 2005. The Project has also associated with Intel Skool for collaborative content development programmes http://kerala.skoool.in . The Project has also developed contents for Upper Primary classes – for 5-7 classes and the same has been given to all schools. To add with this, the Project had developed E-Text books for Std 8 to 10.
The ICT enabling process which was piloted in the state two years back has become a success; with this year’s 8th Standard IT text book being entirely based on ICT enabled education, with inputs from all subjects. An unique 8GB Resource DVD for teachers was also developed by IT@School Project, which included the latest edition of Edusoft, 50 selected articles from Malayalam Wiki, Malayalam Computing tools, IT@School Linux 3.2 Operating system, New Edition of Ubuntu OS, ICT Training module, Educational contents on Biology & Maths and PDF versions of Textbooks and Handbooks. The ICT training by making use of the Resource DVD is been imparted to over 60,000 teachers in the state. The Project also introduced a customized version of WIKI, namely www.schoolwiki.in which provides a comprehensive knowledge database of all schools in the state. The aim of SchoolWiki is to bring out collaborative data building and to generate more interest among students to learn Malayalam and to generate more contents in various subjects. Schoolwiki also features an ICT Learning Corner, which would include the various contents prepared by schools for all subjects in ICT enabled education. The various contents are packed in DVD and CD ROMs which are supplied free of cost to the schools with the idea of free distribution among the learning and teaching community. This process eventually resulted in the Free Digital Library at Schools wherein the contents included the subjectwise contents, contents which are telecasted through ViCTERS channel, exam oriented programmes etc. With all schools provided with Broadband connectivity, most of these contents were also made available online.
Some of the highlights of content development process initiated by the Project are as follows
- Development of examination software for conduct of IT practical examination for more than 15 lakh students, first ever vast deployment of computer and resourceful manpower for conduct of an examination entirely in free software platform.
- Development of numerous educational software in association with CDAC, CDIT etc.
- Development of educational content for ViCTERS (Virtual classroom technology on EDUSAT for rural schools) channel through EDUSAT network.
- Roll out of own operating system- IT@School GNU/Linux Ubuntu
- Localized content development through distribution of Handycam to schools and training to teachers and students
- Development of e-text books and Content CDs for IT enabled education.
- ICT enabled content generation process is being undertaken jointly by the teaching and learning community.
- SchoolWiki ( www.schoolwiki.in) launched by IT@School Project is becoming a revelation of sorts in collaborative content development process."
The advantages of using free software like *Bharat Operating System Solutions - *BOSS Linux - developed by CDAC is all too obvious, given the need to support the PM's Make in India initiative, savings in foreign exchange, security and privacy. BOSS has enhanced Desktop Environment integrated with Indian language support, thus permitting learning in the state's local language.
In reference to this we strongly urge the department to include that all software used by schools should be Free and Open Source.