FOSS in education: IT@School Project, Kerala, India
Girija Krishnaswamy, Dora Vasileva Marinova · Research Bank (Australian Catholic University) · 2012
IT@School Project is termed the single largest simultaneous deployment of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) based Information and Communication Technology (ICT) education in the world. It was setup in 2001 as a project of Department of General Education, Government of Kerala to foster Information Technology (IT) education in schools. Capacity Building in ICT is one of the prime objectives of IT@School Project; it also integrates diverse activities such as content development, infrastructure deployment, satellite based education and e-Governance initiatives in a holistic manner. We believe that the innovative experiment happening in Kerala has important lessons for both the developing and the developed regions. Concerns centre on the sustainability of the FOSSbased Kerala model and whether the FOSS advocates and activists are able to extract from governments a commitment to policy continuance.