Ikua,
I feel you and I am tempted to support your sentiments. But I think this issue runs deeper than whether we should use Proprietary (Microsoft) or Open source software for our pupils in standard 1. My take is we are in a situation where we may NOT have defined the learning objectives, the curriculum, the teaching/delivery/assessments etc. I wish I am wrong but I think we have NO EDUCATIONAL SPECIFICATION of what we want this kids to come out with after blowing 60Billiion Ksh on laptops.
In the absence of this specification, you will get all types of vendors surrounding you and selling you all types of hardware, curricula, software, etc. And then the choice of whom you work with, will very much depend on which vendor can pull the heaviest punch - financially
speaking.
But all is not lost, we just need to define educational specification and then panel-beat all the vendors to do what we want, not what THEY want. And maybe that specification exists but is a cabinet secret - and so we shall continue fire-fighting in darkness.
walu.
From: Evans Ikua <ikua.evans@gmail.com>
To: jwalu@yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>; "isoc@orion.my.co.ke" <isoc@orion.my.co.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, June 4, 2013 8:54 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] President Kenyatta secures Microsoft support for
computers
Dear Dr Ndemo,
Now that you have outlined what MS will do, maybe you can share with us what is in it for them? I am sure they did not fly in their Global President for nothing. I suspect that they stand to gain immensely from this "partnership". The partners referred to must be their local distributors, or other Government agencies. They will win big and we will lose big time.
It would be good to know how much the laptops will cost, and how much of that cost will go to software, or to MS for that matter. If they are offering a free OS, or a subsidised one for that matter, just remember the analogy of dope - the first dose is always free, its the subsequent one that you pay for!
Dont even think about the fact that if we give proprietary solutions to our kids, we will be losing the opportunity to give them better options that are available in open source. But most sadly, we have just mortgaged our freedom and that of the future generations.
Ikua
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