Hi,
As you already know, ILUG-BOM have migrated two schools in Mumbai to Linux/Open Source. There is a query from these schools for a list of appropriate computer books for coming academic year.
There is an excellent project - Computer Masti by, IIT Mumbai, where Open Source Computer Books are being created and released under 'creative commons'.
Intially copyrights belonged to InOpen technologies, now they are taken over by Next.Education.
I really appreciate IIT-B and FOSSEE teams for their commendable projects. It seems that the project now is maintained nicely by Next.Education without violating the Open Source Policy. I suppose that they do not depend upon government funds now to grow. These books will definitely be a great help to all the schools migrated to open source.
So I think we can surely recommend these books to all schools.
But this solves the problem of most of the CBSE/ICSE schools who generally do not have budget restrictions.
On the other hand, students of many state board schools come from weaker sections of the society. They cannot even spend 250 Rs for a book. Our two schools also come in these category. ( They are aided, but IT section is unaided, so even salary of teachers is paid by school management).
While talking to ILUG team, Fr Jude of St Mary school said "We cannot charge more than 500 Rs for computer fees, then how to pay licences of commercial softwares ?"
So lack of funds is the prime reason for them to migrate.
They are expecting from us something like a small booklet costing around 50-75 Rs for each std so that students can afford it.
Kindly give your suggestions.
TIA Milind