Syllabus Review

Syllabus Review of Indian Educational Institutes to filter out Brandings

If we hope to make the next generation of Indian students digitally literate, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is the most logical choice. However, the syllabus in many academic institutions *mandates* proprietary software and mentions them by brand names.

This prevents teachers and students from choosing the software that best suits their needs and budgets. It makes the education system teach products not principles. And the benefits go to the owners of the brand names, not to the country, or the students or the teachers.

To bring the benefits of FOSS to Indian students, one of the first steps we need to take is to remove the proprietary bias from the syllabus.

How you can help

If you come across examples of brand names being mentioned in the syllabus in Primary Education, Secondary Education, Professional Colleges or Others, please bring them to our attention. If you can find a link to the syllabus, add it to the appropriate section and add information on the brand names mentioned in the syllabus. We aim to have a substantial database built up by the end of May 2008. We will take this information to education policy makers and political parties and get the syllabus changed.

Primary Education

Subject	Objections	Remarks	Softwares
NCERT
IT CURRICULUM, NCERT	IT TOOLS section says to use Windows operating system and internet explorer(/netscape navigator).Repeated advices about installing anti-virus softwares when only proprietary software systems require such an urgent vigil against viruses.	Windows operating system and Internet explorer are proprietary softwares.Though NCERT keeps a good status of using standard words than using "powerpoint" for "presentation".	Windows OS,Internet Explorer

Secondary Education

Subject	Objections	Remarks	Softwares
Board of Secondary Education,Rajasthan
Computer Literacy for secondary and senior secondary students	IXth,Xth,XIth and XIIth standard syllabi includes Computer litercy as one of the subjects,Which teaches them about nothing but MS's platform and softwares leading them to absolute dependency on propreitary software platforms.Starting from defining types of OSes as DOS and Windows in IXth,in Xth it goes to teach the GUI of windows in advanced windows section and including Internet Explorer in the IT-basics portion.In XI its about IT TOOLS which are Windows,MSOffice and about MSAccess and Propreitary biased SQL without software specification, in XIIth and all these with 40% weightage to practicals including Visual Basic and .	Ultimate education package to create a youth of slaves.	)Windows, 2)OS, 3)MSOffice, 4)DOS, 5)Internet Explorer, 6)Non Standard SQL, 7)Visual Basic

Colleges & Universities

College/University	Course	Remarks	Discussion
M.G.Govt. Arts College,Mahe, under Pondicherry University	B.A.Malayalam Course has a paper by name Introduction to Malayalam Softwares. It introduces basic concepts of Language Computing and various text editing and Word Processing applications. The OS is Windows,since at the time of framing the syllabus,GNU/Linux distribution with Malayalam support was not available. Currently that syllabus requires an overhauling.	Windows operation system and ASCII encoded text editing and Word Processing applications are the softwares
MG University, Kottayam, Kerala	Btech, Computer Science	Paper :RT503 - Database Systems Case study in Oracle Paper : RT502 - Operating Systems General Structure of MSDOS, Windows 2000, Linux. Paper : RT704 - Advanced Software environments Windows API, MFC Paper  : RT706-4 - Windows programming ! Paper : R707 - Hardware Lab MASM Paper : RT805-5 - Distributed Computing Sun Network file system.||
MG University, Kottayam, Kerala	MCA	Insists students for using Oracle||
Calicut University, Kozhikode, Kerala	B.Sc Computer Science	Uses Visual Basic, Visual C++, for programing. uses MASM as assembler. Uses Oracle as database. Adobe Flash for flash scripting. And have ASP.net. Uses Windows Operating Systems in my College and don't know how it's in other colleges, but most are using windows Operating systems. And their office suit for Editing and making presentations.||
Bharathiyar University, Distance education	BCA	Studies COBOL, and uses Windows operating systems. Don't know more details. But I will add it soon.||
University of Mumbai	BSc (IT), MSc(IT)	The following list is one that is observed across institutes for conducting practical sessions, but is not explicity mentioned in the syllabus. The course content for theory classes do not explicity or implicity refer to the use of these programs. Use of only Turbo C++ 3.0 (16-bit) compiler to write C / C++ programs (and VC++ later) Visual Basic as a mandatory Subject in SEM V (BSc[IT]) denying the merits of other Prototyping software Use of Emulators (Wipro UWin) instead of *nix based distributions for practical sessions on *nix based subjects Windows based OSes allowing "each one to his own" kinda behaviour for learning / spreading knowledge implying lack of standards for software across institutions / colleges teaching these courses.