FOSS now in one Indian State's school curriculum, and Salesians get behind it
NEW DELHI: 9th January 2008 -- Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has been officially included in the curriculum for the Diploma in Printing Technology, to be approved by the Government's Directorate of Technical Education in Tamil Nadu, South India. The new syllabus is to be implemented in all Polytechnic Colleges in Tamil Nadu from June 2008.
The case for including FOSS, along with proprietary software, in the syllabus of polytechnic colleges was convincingly argued by Fr. P. T. Joseph SDB, Vice-Principal of SIGA Polytechnic College, who is a member of the Government's ten-member Syllabus Committee. "The Government should not be seen as promoting only certain proprietary software companies," Fr. Joseph argued. "It should welcome FOSS as an alternative software for students in its institutions," he said. The new syllabus was finalised during the meeting of the Syllabus Committee that took place at the Salesian Institute of Graphic Arts (SIGA) Polytechnic College in Chennai on 3-4 January.
The Salesians of Don Bosco have been in the forefront of technical education in India for many decades now. With over 120 centres spread across the country, they are reputed to be the number one agency, after the Government of India itself, taking care of middle and lower level technical training in the country. They believe that promoting Open Source Software is, as the Rector Major Fr. Pascual Chavez puts it, 'a way of moving towards democratization of information and culture,' and a way of overcoming the 'digital divide' between the rich and the poor. In fact, one of the decisions of BOSCOM, the National Salesian Social Communications body, this year was to promote the use of FOSS in all Salesian provinces of India.
The movement towards Free and Open Source Software can be backed by a principled approach to a range of issues central to Salesian education, not least the Strenna 2008 appeal to revisit the Preventive System and to promote the rights of poor young people. A meeting of all Salesian Centres of formation to Social Communication in Sao Paolo last year supported a worldwide Salesian effort to develop such a principled understanding of FOSS and its implementation on behalf of the poor. Two Salesian seminars this year, one in Argentina, the other in Brazill, are following up this concept and in October the Universidad Politecnica Salesiana in Ecuador is mounting an international Conference on the theme of Communication Education, FOSS and the Salesian approach to education.
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Title: australasia 2024
Subject and key words: SAsia INM India Free Open Source Software Salesian education
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2024
