FOSS@SCHOOL Still a Challenge in the Philippines

 

"I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place." - Richard Stallman

The other day I received an invitation from a friend who is also an advocate in the use of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to be part of a team that would propose and implement a FOSS program for a private school in the province. He is in touch with the school's MIS head and they are trying to find alternatives on the use of their P4's and dual core computer systems that is running on a Window's XP operating system in their computer lab. This is every FOSS advocate's dream to be able to come up with a working FOSS program for implementation by a school and the challenge is how to make that dream into a reality.

Creating Awareness

The FOSS movement has been very active these last couple of years in the Philippines creating awareness on the use of Free and Open Source Software as an alternative to the more expensive prorietary software. The defunct Commission on Information and Communications Technology under the Arroyo administration led the initiative in advocating for its use in government offices. The commission was able to distribute computer units bundled with the Edebuntu operating systems to public schools under their “iSchools” program. They later changed their their position by adopting an “open choice” strategy by letting government agencies had their own choice in choosing what technology they want to use since it believed that the government bureaucracy was not ready for it. FOSS adoption made some headway in the private sector also with a number of companies adopting the use of FOSS for business and security reasons. The main concern is with the education sector which has a lukewarm reception to FOSS. If one desires to have a mass adoption of FOSS at the community level then it needs the acceptance of the education sector since it involves the training of children in technology.

FOSS@School

A number of schools in the Philippines have implemented a FOSS program in one way or another but the problem is beyond the initial press release there has been no update as to its success. There were reports that computer units that were distributed to public schools that was bundled with Linux operating systems were later reformatted to pirated Windows XP systems so that the schools could use them.

Due to my previous job as a marketing man for a computer hardware company, I had the opportunity to go around the country and visit educational institutions for the company. Some schools were using one or two FOSS software like Drupal and Joomla for their courses but they still base their curriculum and system on proprietary software. This is brought about by a number of factors:

1. Lack of government policy on FOSS – as of this time there is still no government policy on FOSS. The FOSS bill is still hibernating in congress since 2006 and there is no chance for it to go further in this congress. Worst the present Aquino administration has but ICT initiatives in education and in the rest of the government agencies last in its priorities.
2. Marketing investments by proprietary software companies in education – educational institutions is a priority customer for proprietary software companies since it involves a captive market of an army of users of students being trained for the use of their software. It provides them an opportunity to set the standards for industry since the skills that would be made available are the ones related to the use of their proprietary software. Proprietary software companies with the help of their partner computer hardware companies invests a lot of marketing money in the training of academic heads, MIS coordinators and teachers.
3. There are a lot of textbooks and reference materials of proprietary software companies to choose from that could be the basis of the school's curriculum as compared to FOSS.
4. Lacking in Educational Champions for FOSS – most of the time an educational institution is run by those who are not technology trained. They rely mostly on the recommendations of their department heads in relation to ICT initiatives who are mostly trained in the use of proprietary software. For a FOSS project to be successful the school heads must be the champions for FOSS to move the rest of the organization forward in its implementation.
5. It goes beyond the COST – one of the tag line of FOSS advocates to entice people to use Free and Open Source Software is that it is free of charge and they would be able to use their savings elsewhere. An ordinary advocate believes in this but one must consider the cost of migration and training needed in order to place a successful FOSS program in schools. Study suggest that in the initial years the cost might be higher than the licensing cost of proprietary software due to the training of personnel and the loss in productivity due to the changes in the way that the organization operates in. Cost benefits will be in the later years once the full program is implemented.