Australian State Blows Opportunity to Bring Linux to Education
If you haven’t read the news, the Australian state of New South Wales has signed a deal to deploy 267,000 Windows netbooks into secondary schools, as part of the Australian federal government’s multi-billion dollar netbook-in-schools programme. This was a golden opportunity to explore the deployment of Linux and open source software in education. An opportunity now lost.
In reality, this wasn’t a great surprise; none of our Education authorities have ever really shown a willingness to think beyond “Planet Microsoft”. That doesn’t stop this situation being lamentable. It’s a decision that will result in lower education software opportunities for Australian students, wasted expense for Australian taxpayers and a diversion of funds from Australia’s indigenous IT industry.
Popularity: 13% [?]