Only Linux can deliver 1 million school laptops within budget: systint

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 10 December 2008 06:11

Business IT - Open Source

"Our expectation is that this programme can be established for a cost of $500 per unit (ie, for 2 students sharing), or $1000 per 4 students. This includes all hardware and software costs. All that remains is the effort of having designated teaching staff image the USB keys, which is a trivial, one-click exercise," said Zymaris.

"We've seen approaches similar to this one work in other countries. For instance, in France, 175,000 'live' Linux USB keys were supplied to Parisian school children.

"It's clear that with the approach we've outlined above, it is feasible to ensure that every single school child in Australia has access to an educational netbook/laptop for much of the school week, and to have that laptop filled with hundreds of useful educational software applications, all within the budget offered by the Government.

"Only Linux and Open Source software can deliver on such a promise," continued Zymaris.

"We must also provide our response to what we've been informed is the key criticism against using Linux in school education, namely that it's 'not Microsoft', and thus somehow wont prepare students for the real world.

"The reality is that students are not likely to be using the same versions of Microsoft's products, years later, when they enter industry; Microsoft's software changes, sometimes dramatically. Therefore, learning computing on Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice.org is not a dis-advantage.

"In fact, there's no guarantee that students will be using a Windows desktop in 5-10 years time; it's therefore important that schools teach concepts, such as word-processing and spreadsheets, rather than specific products, such as Word and Excel.

"By contrast, we don't teach our kids Addison-Wesley calculus or Monsanto chemistry - we teach them calculus and chemistry. Similarly, we shouldn't be teaching them just Microsoft computing, but computing. And the best way to ensure that they understand a concept, is to teach them more than one form of it.

"This is what this proposal can achieve - we are future-proofing Australian school-children's education," concluded Zymaris.