Hi,
Well, title of the article is misleading.
Kerala still has lots of schools running GNU/Linux. On 10th of this month some of us were in Kozhikkodu for a parallel teacher training.
IT@School project under the government was completely against free software. They tried all dirty tricks to get free software out of school.
Until last academic year many schools in north kerala were running only on free software. But some tricks were used to reduce the number.
When IT became a subject for SSLC exam, IT@School project introduced a software to conduct exam ( may be world's first state to conduct school exam with software ;) ). This software didnt work well on GNU/Linux. Particularly terminal server based system. Headmasters and other staff members were threatened to move out of free software just to conduct exam. Only two schools resisted the pressure.
After KSTA threatening to boycott the exams, project is providing (or at least showing ) some support to free software in schools. Many schools across the state now moved to free software. Official teacher training was conducted by IT@School and some parallel efforts were conducted by the community.
Efforts are still on to train more teachers. We learn that hundreds of people registered with IT@School project to provide free software support. IT@School has this database. Unfortunately the database is still not gone public. We need to ask why this database is kept in dark.
Any way Kerala is moving to free software very fast. www.space-kerala.org project is now conducting training program for small scale computer vendors on GNU/Linux. First program was conducted on 11-12th in Malappuram. News will be posted to project website soon.
regards, arun.
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IER20050917015000&Page=R&...
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Closing their 'windows' on free software, Kerala schools have clicked on Microsoft as the operating system for IT@school.
Except for two schools - Government Mappillah Higher Secondary School, Koyilandi, and Patyam Gopalan Memorial School, Vatakara - all other high schools, numbering about 2,640, have preferred to install Microsoft software while voting for its credibility and flexibility.