UK Schools Told to Dump Microsoft

kubla2000 writes "The current issue of the Times Educational Supplement is running an article in which they cite a report by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association telling primary and secondary schools in the UK to dump Microsoft Operating systems and products in order to save millions. In a report to be published next week, obtained by The TES, Becta will highlight schools which have turned to free software instead of the market leader's products. Becta does not name Microsoft in its analysis. But almost all schools use some of the company's products. Their conclusion? Schools running OSS are saving 24% on average per pc versus those running proprietary systems."

Comments

Good

[ajs318]

Once schools are teaching how to use Free software, then businesses will no longer be able to use the bogus argument "but that's what they teach in schools" as a reason to stick with Microsoft.

Schools should not be Microsoft training centres anyway. We pay for schools with our Council Tax, and this particular Council Tax payer resents having my hard-earned spent on consolidating a foreign monopoly.

Into the minds of the young

[silence535]

Lately I was absolutely amazed how much my 14 year old cousin associates 'Windows' with 'Computer' and vice versa. He had absolutely no idea that there even is a company called Apple and that there are other operating systems like Linux or *BSD.

Computer is PC and PC is Windows.

This is actually a really bad sign, since one tends to like what you are used to. If you learn on the one OS and get into computers only on this road, than everything else you cross by later will only be 'Not as you know it.'

We hear that argument ever so often, especially in the context of Office programs. People dislike OpenOffice not because it does not do the job for them, but because '...it is not like MS-Office'.

'In Word I can do this and that...'

Using MS Products in schools cements their Monopoly in a way that no other marketing campain could achieve.

-jsl

Re:Into the minds of the young

[jawtheshark]

Computer is PC and PC is Windows.

Exactly, and it goes much deeper than that. My girlfriend (there goes my slashdot reputation) was absolutely amazed that I had something non-Windows. (I run: Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and also Windows 2000). Before she knew me she bought a (much too expensive) Windows machine for her needs. She only got trouble with it. She was absolutely amazed at what my iBook could do. Needless to say that she was pretty much pissed that she didn't know about Apple. Why didn't she know? Simple: she schooling she had was Windows-only. Even though some teachers told her to get a Mac, it didn't stick with her. (After all she never saw one before meeting me).
So when the time came to buy a computer, she looked at the advertisements. The only thing you see there were... you got it: Windows machines. She bought that (and upon the advice of her former boyfriend, she bought the most expensive one that was sold at the time). For the same price she could have gotten a fully loaded Apple. She doesn't need much: she's a kindergarden teacher and has to write the occasional letter to parents and surf the web and email. The machine she had (before buying her new computer) would have been more than adequate with some added RAM. (The old machine now is used by her mom after I added RAM and reinstalled it... It works *just fine*)
Only after I cleaned her new machine and secured it (which took a lot of time) her machine is now usable. I already tried to convince her to buy a Mac Mini to replace her P-IV machine, but she doesn't want to spend money on new computer hardware anymore. Very understandable.

As for Microsoft in education. I am an (apprentice-)teacher since january this year. Everything I (have) to teach is 100% Microsoft. The school-programme itself never mentions "Microsoft" per se, but if you read the programme and know what software is installed on the machines, you know exactly what is meant. Up until now, I managed to survive with my own Office 97 copy to prepare courses. Alas, I now have to do databases, which means "Access". I found out the hard way that Access 2003 (what the school runs) is incompatible with Access 97. Today I asked the computer-department to get a copy of Office 2003 in order to upgrade my own machine. (Note: this is completely legal in the context of their contract). It absolutely sucks. Personally I write all my stuff (courses, tests, etc...) in OpenOffice, but course preparation without the software that is run at school is pretty much impossible. I fear that Office 2003 is going to a dog on my P-III 600Mhz laptop that I have dedicated for schoolwork.

Of course, schooling in this country is completely sold to Microsoft. :-( I'd rather teach the kids the basics, but as I understood, the school programmes are written by asking companies what they want from people that have a certain diploma. The companies obviously want Microsoft, because that will give them people that are nearly immediately productive. It's sad... Perhaps some day this will change, but for now I'm stuck with that kind of mentality.

Makes me wonder why I actually wanted to become a teacher. :-((

a step in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

my mum is a year 6 primary school teacher. in her class there are 5 computers; 3 with Windows 2k and 2 older machines with SuSE 9.0 (that i installed a month or two ago).

only one of the windows machines is covered by their office licence, and their other licences for educational software. the other two windows machines were pretty useless until i installed abiword on them.

the SuSE machines are definately the most popular amongst the kids (aged 10-11); partially due to the selection of games that came with the distro, but mostly because its something new and different. this effect will obviously ware off after a couple of months but it will be interesting to see which machines they favour in the long run.

The worst that can happen is that they'll know that non-MS operating systems exist.