The following items were sent to: Shri S. C. Khuntia Joint Secretary (SE) Room No. 217-C, D/o SE&L MHRD, Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi
A PDF copy of the letter by email to ictpolicy.edu@nic.in , copy s.khuntia@nic.in .
- FAX at 011 23070584
- A physical copy by courier
For future reference, here are:
A copy of the letter (couple of wording changes from the Wiki version below): school_ict_fosscomm.pdf
A copy of the covering email: EmailSchoolICT
Dear Sir,
We wish to record our appreciation for the progressive draft policy on 'ICT in School Education' developed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The draft policy promises to promote a culture of sharing and collaboration among teachers and students. We wish to specifically record our appreciation for certain parts of the draft policy, such as:
"4.1.2 The ICT literacy programme will endeavour to provide a broad set of generic skills and conceptual knowledge and not focus on mastering the use of specific software applications."
and also
"6.1.1 The state shall endeavour to provide universal, equitable, open and free access to ICT and ICT enabled tools and resources to all students and teachers."
We enthusiastically welcome the mention of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) as a preferred choice. However, we would also like to put on record our strong apprehensions regarding certain aspects of the relevant part of the draft which states that
"5.3.2 Free ware, free and open source software applications will be preferred."
This statement is rather vague and confusing, and can be quite misleading, in putting two very different software models together. There are basic differences between freeware and "Free and Open Source Software". Freeware is proprietary and restricts the user in several ways. For instance, certain software, though freely downloadable from a website, cannot be shared with others. Each user will have to download it separately. Often some properietary software is initially given for free with ulterior motives to hook the users, and then make money out of upgrades and later purchases following from a lock-in to the software by a large number of users. Such a strategy is now well known, and especially very commonly employed in the education sector, as has also been the experience in India at many places.
Even without ulterior motives behind it, freeware does not give the user the freedom to study, and modify the software, because the source code is hidden. FOSS is fundamentally different in that it allows users to share, modify and redistribute modified software. In this respect, FOSS suits the basic philosophy of the policy, while freeware does not. FOSS is also in keeping with the constructivist model of education spoken of in various education policy documents of the government of India. Therefore, we strongly recommend that the policy clearly and unambiguously state that FOSS will be used. In fact, statements 4.1.2 and 6.1.1 cited above clearly indicate the need for adopting FOSS as the preferred choice. The term 'free ware' should therefore be excluded from this part, as likely to be misleading.
While we are in close agreement with the points in Sec. 6, we suggest the stressing of the importance of having content available under a licence that allows its modification, and redistribution, as this is what would allow teachers to tailor content to specific local needs that often cannot be anticipated ahead of time. Maybe something along the lines of the following paragraph can be added at the beginning of the section:
"Developing, accessing and using digital content will preferably be done in the public domain, or through open licenses like Creative Commons."
Another statement that does not seem to go well with the basic philosophy of the document is the following:
10.8.1 Build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) models for ICT infrastructure will be preferred.
This model is certainly not suited for furthering the idea of sharing and collaboration, and the justified emphasis that the draft policy places on teachers and teacher-trainers in fulfilling the objectives of the policy. Experience in Kerala has shown that a model that empowers the teachers, and develops the programme with support from the teacher community is highly successful. Besides empowering the teaching community, this also creates ownership in the community, which is important for both initial success, and long-term sutainability. Hence, we strongly urge that the policy refrain from proposing the BOOT model as the preferred one, especially in the areas of training, capacity building, software and content.
This message is on behalf of FOSSCOMM, which is a civil society alliance of organizations and individuals working to promote the use FOSS in India. We are sure that with these few changes, the proposed policy on 'ICTs in school education' can go a long way in bringing about fundamental changes in our ailing education system. We promise our full support for the adoption of such a policy, and our active engagement with all the programmes that will be developed in its pursuance.
Regards