FOSS In Education

Indian Context
Sai Sreekanth M
sais72@yahoo.com
December 01 2005
Yahoo! Confidential 1
Primary Education in India

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 Primary Education Context

• Pratham’s rapid assessment of learning outcomes,

June-August 2004
• About 10% of students in age group 7-14 are out of
school
• About 45% of students in Govt. Schools in age group 7-
10 cannot read, 13% in age group 11-14
• About 60% of students in Govt. Schools in age group
11-14 cannot write, 25% in age group 11-14
• 75% of Govt. School students between ages 7-10
cannot do simple arithmetic

Yahoo! Confidential 3
 Primary education context

• Increasing focus on ‘what is thought at

school’ rather than on ‘are children in
school’
• Effective delivery of education is key
• Quality and quantity of teachers,
education material, resources are very
low
• Evidence shows that Computer Assisted
Learning has improved learning
Yahoo! Confidential 4
 Primary education – Govt. School
Computerisation in the country

• Several School Computerisation programs

– Vidyavahini from central govt, several state govt.
initiatives (mahiti sindhu)
– Education content is largely curriculum content, quite
pedantic, boring
– Most students use GIMP, office applications
– Learn how to use computers, learning outcomes
have not been significantly impacted
– Near Zero funds for operating expenditure
– No working/usable internet connectivity

Yahoo! Confidential 5
Open Source in Schools

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 Role of Open Source

• Open source not an ideological choice

• Affordability is a huge issue – Most infrastructure is
granted, copied
• Anything that is available is useful
• What is needed is Open Access, Open Content, Open
Source, Open Minds??

• Humungous amount of free, open source applications

that are relevant for effective primary education
• Open source addresses one part of the problem
• TCO of software alone is lower not free
Yahoo! Confidential 7
 Myths

• Open Source Software is difficult to use

– Evidence of usage in Bridge school, minority
school and government schools in Kuppam
– No active teaching required
• Need trained resources
• Regional language content is essential
• Content suitable for local curriculum is
essential and not available
Yahoo! Confidential 8
 What works well in Schools

• Several applications do not need any active

teaching
– Ktutor – typing tutor program
– English learning tools – Jumbles, hangman
– Math tools - Percentage exercises, Graph plotters,
– Chemistry – chemical lab simulators, periodic tables,
chemical bonds,
– Opensourcephysics.org
– Celestia for astronomy
– Geography – GIS, maps and atlas tools
– Image processing, productivity tools (open office)

Yahoo! Confidential 9
 Useful resources

• KDE Edutainment suite

• Celestia
• Edubuntu
• Wikipedia, archive.org,
• Gcompris, childsplay
• Anangramarama
• TuxMath Scrabble
Yahoo! Confidential 10
 Needs in Education

• Education tools
– First Invest in tools than in curriculum content
– Do not have language constraint if done well
– E.g. Create a indic language hangman, jumbles,
scrabble, crossword,
• Good tools for Indian language computing –
IMEs, Rendering
• Reference material such as dictionaries,
thesaurus etc in Indian languages
• Indian content, books, literature
• English language learning content, tools
Yahoo! Confidential 11
 Indian language content and
applications

• APF content
• Unicef Sisu Samrakshak, Meena series
• Tata literacy project
• Content from education departments
• IGNOU, EMRC
• Archive.org, wikipedia, digitallibraries

Yahoo! Confidential 12
 Needs in Education

• District/Taluk level Computer assisted

education centres
– 20 to 40 seat computer centre with
broadband connectivity
– Open to schools, students in the region
– Supported and run by industry
– Resource centre for schools in the region
• Distribute applications and content

Yahoo! Confidential 13
 References

• www.iosn.net - foss in education primer

• www.pratham.org – rapid assessment
• www.infodev.org/education - ICTs in education, knowns and
unknowns, briefing notes
• www.edubuntu.org – ubuntu distro for education
• www.freshmeat.com – listing of open source software
• directory.fsf.org/ - directory of free software
• edu.kde.org – kde edutainment project, several useful applications
• www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd - live CD for primary schools
• fsd.unesco.org/directory – UNESCO free software directory
• www.asymptopia.org – foss math applications
• http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Education - Specialised education
distro for india

Yahoo! Confidential 14