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South African Education Department Bans Free and Open Source Software

Posted by Unknown on from the 1993-wants-their-programming-language-back dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The South African Education Department has effectively banned the use of FOSS software in state-run schools by forcing all candidates writing the Computer Applications Technology examination to use Microsoft's Office 2010 or 2013 as the only supported options. In the same circular, the state has mandated that all schools use Delphi, instead of Java, as the programming language for the country's Information Technology practical paper. South Africa, notorious for its poor performance in Maths and Science and for having vastly over-crowded and underfunded schools, are now locked into costly Microsoft licensing because of this decision."

3 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Re:wait a minute by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because they were given a different rate?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  2. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by avgjoe62 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Never ascribe that to malice which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

    --

    How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?

  3. SA Educational plans and pricing for Office 365 by westlake · · Score: 4, Informative

    If my $10 mil company can't afford Office 2013 and is switching to Libre, how the hell can an African school system afford it?

    Office 365 plans and pricing for education [South Africa]

    Plan A3

    Students:
    R 23,30 user/month

    Faculty and staff:
    R 42,00 user/month

    1 South African Rand = 10 cents US.

    Includes:

    Hosted e-mail. 25 GB/user.
    Web conferencing, supports HD video, etc.
    3,000 SharePoint team sites.
    Active directory integration
    24/7 phone support
    Anti-spam and anti-malware
    Office Web Apps
    MS Office "Pro" Suite for 5 PCs or Macs/user
    Advanced e-mail, advanced voice mail.

    May include "MS Office Anywhere" --- stream full Office apps to any PC.

    So what are your monthly costs per user for an equivalent bundle of applications and services? How well does Libre Office integrate with third party applications and resources?