Khaotic Musings
Random musings on Linux and Free and Open Source Software.
Friday 3 April 2009, 2:32 AM
Australian State Blows Opportunity to Bring Linux to Education
If you haven't read the news, the Australian state of New South Wales has signed a deal to deploy 267,000 Windows netbooks into secondary schools, as part of the Australian federal government's multi-billion dollar netbook-in-schools programme. This was a golden opportunity to explore the deployment of Linux and open source software in education. An opportunity now lost.
In reality, this wasn't a great surprise; none of our Education authorities have ever really shown a willingness to think beyond "Planet Microsoft". That doesn't stop this situation being lamentable. It's a decision that will result in lower education software opportunities for Australian students, wasted expense for Australian taxpayers and a diversion of funds from Australia's indigenous IT industry.
Instead of taking the steps necessary to plan a migration to Linux and open source software, we've ended up with the same-ol, same-ol, with public servants who can't be bothered to do the work needed to break free from the Microsoft and proprietary software orbit.
The Australian open source community knows that reaching kids early is the best way to ensure that they understand that there is more to computing that just Microsoft and proprietary apps. We have therefore invested a great deal of time and effort in raising the awareness of open source software among the various state Departments' of Education. To see no real movement by those bodies away from the status-quo, is a great frustration.
The open source community believes that Linux and open source software can deliver a better educational experience to students, allowing them access to more software, including specialist software in mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer graphics and software development, than is currently permissible under the procurement practices adopted by the Departments.
Naysayers may say that the Windows platform has more educational software, but that doesn't help much, as most of that software costs money and most schools are too cash-strapped to buy it. Therefore, the kids are stuck with Windows and Word, rather than having their horizons broadened by Blender, PHP, Celestia and Maxima.
At the very least, we expect that the NSW Department of Education and Training should release to the public, the complete report of their comparison analysis between Linux and Microsoft. The fact that they've awarded the deal to Microsoft without this explanation is a serious concern. If the Department claims that it's research shows the Microsoft option more viable, we want to see how.
Perhaps the primary argument raised by naysayers about how a move to Linux isn't feasible, relates to the difficulty in making the leap from Windows to Linux. There is a way to migrate to Linux and open source software, a way that was clearly demonstrated recently by the French National Gendarmerie, which saved 50 million Euros by migrating to open source software rather than Microsoft and proprietary software.
In short, the NSW Department of Education and Training must know that it's not possible to just simply 'switch' to Linux, from one month to the next. A migration to Linux is something that needs to be planned to occur in stages, and is a 18-36 month process. Unless Education Departments make the conscious decision to migrate to Linux, and prepare the path to that migration, it will never happen.
Opening up to a panorama of great, zero-cost educational software is fine, but what are the other reasons that Education Departments should look to Linux? Let's look at the financials, as that generally keeps the public-servants interested.
In this deal, the NSW and Federal governments are pouring a total of AU$536 million dollars to deploy 267,000 netbooks into NSW secondary schools. This translates to over AU$2000 per netbook in order to run Windows software. As a comparison, the open source industry publicly presented a number of models for netbook deployment, which offered a netbook deployment cost of only $500 per unit, a 75% saving.
The upshot of all this is that by choosing the Windows path, the NSW
Department of Education and Training has prevented 3 out of every 4 school kids from getting the computer they would have otherwise received if the Linux option had been chosen. That translates to a 75% waste of money.
Rather than think outside the box, for the Department, this decision was merely business as usual: the "we can't be bothered doing the work needed to shift away from what we've always done; it's not as if the money's coming from our pockets" decision. In the end, the losers are going to be Australia's school children, Australia's taxpayers and Australia's IT industry. And the only winners are Microsoft and purveyors of proprietary software, none of them Australian.
My message to you in the UK? You're in the same boat we are. Try harder than we did.
In reality, this wasn't a great surprise; none of our Education authorities have ever really shown a willingness to think beyond "Planet Microsoft". That doesn't stop this situation being lamentable. It's a decision that will result in lower education software opportunities for Australian students, wasted expense for Australian taxpayers and a diversion of funds from Australia's indigenous IT industry.
Instead of taking the steps necessary to plan a migration to Linux and open source software, we've ended up with the same-ol, same-ol, with public servants who can't be bothered to do the work needed to break free from the Microsoft and proprietary software orbit.
The Australian open source community knows that reaching kids early is the best way to ensure that they understand that there is more to computing that just Microsoft and proprietary apps. We have therefore invested a great deal of time and effort in raising the awareness of open source software among the various state Departments' of Education. To see no real movement by those bodies away from the status-quo, is a great frustration.
The open source community believes that Linux and open source software can deliver a better educational experience to students, allowing them access to more software, including specialist software in mathematics, chemistry, physics, computer graphics and software development, than is currently permissible under the procurement practices adopted by the Departments.
Naysayers may say that the Windows platform has more educational software, but that doesn't help much, as most of that software costs money and most schools are too cash-strapped to buy it. Therefore, the kids are stuck with Windows and Word, rather than having their horizons broadened by Blender, PHP, Celestia and Maxima.
At the very least, we expect that the NSW Department of Education and Training should release to the public, the complete report of their comparison analysis between Linux and Microsoft. The fact that they've awarded the deal to Microsoft without this explanation is a serious concern. If the Department claims that it's research shows the Microsoft option more viable, we want to see how.
Perhaps the primary argument raised by naysayers about how a move to Linux isn't feasible, relates to the difficulty in making the leap from Windows to Linux. There is a way to migrate to Linux and open source software, a way that was clearly demonstrated recently by the French National Gendarmerie, which saved 50 million Euros by migrating to open source software rather than Microsoft and proprietary software.
In short, the NSW Department of Education and Training must know that it's not possible to just simply 'switch' to Linux, from one month to the next. A migration to Linux is something that needs to be planned to occur in stages, and is a 18-36 month process. Unless Education Departments make the conscious decision to migrate to Linux, and prepare the path to that migration, it will never happen.
Opening up to a panorama of great, zero-cost educational software is fine, but what are the other reasons that Education Departments should look to Linux? Let's look at the financials, as that generally keeps the public-servants interested.
In this deal, the NSW and Federal governments are pouring a total of AU$536 million dollars to deploy 267,000 netbooks into NSW secondary schools. This translates to over AU$2000 per netbook in order to run Windows software. As a comparison, the open source industry publicly presented a number of models for netbook deployment, which offered a netbook deployment cost of only $500 per unit, a 75% saving.
The upshot of all this is that by choosing the Windows path, the NSW
Department of Education and Training has prevented 3 out of every 4 school kids from getting the computer they would have otherwise received if the Linux option had been chosen. That translates to a 75% waste of money.
Rather than think outside the box, for the Department, this decision was merely business as usual: the "we can't be bothered doing the work needed to shift away from what we've always done; it's not as if the money's coming from our pockets" decision. In the end, the losers are going to be Australia's school children, Australia's taxpayers and Australia's IT industry. And the only winners are Microsoft and purveyors of proprietary software, none of them Australian.
My message to you in the UK? You're in the same boat we are. Try harder than we did.
PreviousComments on this post
At 2000 AU$ a netbook, that almost equates to £1000 each at current exchange rates. Absolutely Scandalous!
That's without taking into account that school IT just consists of learning to use Microsoft products rather than real IT.
So the next generations will just stick with Microsoft because they don't know any different.
So much for our educators!
Coward's way out - just the same with the CRB2 register, anyone on that, rightly or wrongly, has no real chance.
Hi Moley.
The numbers coming out of the Department aren't crystal clear, but they do indicate a deployment/maintenance cost of around AU$2008 per netbook.
What's problematic here is that colleagues and I did the numbers for the deployment of netbooks using live Linux USB keys, which could be re-wiped if problems arose, making them a perfect solution for schools which wanted to avoid expensive ongoing maintenance costs. The figures we arrived at for deployment/maintenance for this style of solution were for $500 per netbook.
