South African Education Department Bans Free and Open Source Software

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday October 9, 2013 @05:22AM 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."

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(sniffs cautiously) by zooblethorpe · 2013-10-09 05:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

Well, I don't smell any hint of corruption here, no sirree!
</sarcasm>

--
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
1. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by gstoddart · 2013-10-09 05:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Well, I don't smell any hint of corruption here, no sirree!
  It doesn't need to be corruption.
  It could merely be incompetence and stupidity.
  
  --
  Lost at C:>. Found at C.
2. Re:(sniffs cautiously) by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-09 06:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Never ascribe to incompetence what can be adequately explained by greed.