----- Original Message ----- From: itschool@asianetindia.com To: Harilal harilal@cusat.ac.in Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 3:47 PM Subject: Re:
Dear Harilal, It is not a virtual Surrender to MNCS. Think about the logistics involved. We have to train some 500 Master Trainers for training other teachers. All the 2000 Schools should have sufficient copies of Software. Then there is the need of a unified syllabus through the State, then only exams could be conducted in the SSLC. Think about the training alone. We are employing now 165 Master Trainers after giving them 15 days training in association with Intel. These people are to give training to
the
60000 teachers. What do an average person learns on IT after15 days training? But they are managing it because they are familiar with Microsoft products, which are common through out this state. What about the course materials for 60000 teachers? What about the Software at the training centres? Does the free Software foundation man a call centre where people can get help in our language whenever they encounter a problem with Hardware or Software while using the free Software? There is so many other logistical issues associated. You must understand that IT @ School was started way back in 2000. It is making some progress only during this year. Please note that I took over on 17th August 2001 and was running pillar to post to arrange all these logistics till April 2002. Apart from the DEOs and
others
you may be astonished to hear the number of people with Project team, which is implementing this mammoth the project.
Executive Director-1 Officers-5 Data entry operators-3 Peon-1 and 165 MTs who are busy with training . We are training around 1300 high school teachers is around 75 training centres every two weeks.
We adopt a strategy to introduce Microsoft for the 1st year then move to open office during 2nd year (for IT-2 text book) and introduces Linux and open office in 50:50 arrangement with windows and Ms office from IT-3 textbook onwards. When sufficient groundwork is done the school level and teachers level we may increase the weightage of open Software in our curriculum. This year Prof. Krishnan (University College, Thiruvananthapuram). President of Trivandrum chapter Free Software foundation is a member of the expert Committee overseeing the preparation of IT-2 textbook. Need I say anything more.
regards
Biju Prabhakar
Executive Director
IT @ School Project