Shiksha is a word in the Sanskrit language which means "to instruct" or "educate". Shiksha India - a non-profit organization, is an initiative of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and was launched during the India Economic Summit on 2nd of December 2001. It is managed by the Shiksha India Trust. The main aim of this organization is to provide good quality multimedia driven educational material. It has the blessings of the Indian government and it has partnered with the Ministry of Information Technology of India to provide good quality educational content in the public domain.
Mark Rais writes about how this non-profit project is playing a pivotal role in imparting education to more than half a million under privileged students. What is more important is the manner in which Open Source plays a significant role in this project.
In India, most Government controlled schools in the cities run in a relatively smooth manner and on an average have a teacher student ratio of 1:40. But as you move to the outskirts, in villages and in many remote areas, the so called government schools are just dilapidated structures with not enough teachers. And if there are teachers, the people in that area are so poor that they feel sending children to school will be a waste when they would rather ask them to do odd jobs and contribute to the family income.
To overcome this inertia among the people and to encourage them to send their children to schools, many state governments have started the free mid-day meals scheme in all government run schools in their respective states which has shown results in greater attendance in classes.
To overcome this inertia among the people and to encourage them to send their children to schools, many state governments have started the free mid-day meals scheme in all government run schools in their respective states which has shown results in greater attendance in classes.
By embracing Open Source and Free Software solutions in public institutions including government run schools, India can save a huge amount of money in licensing costs which can be diverted to meet more pressing humanitarian needs. At present, the official stance of the Indian government is to use the most efficient technology in IT be it proprietary or Open source. And which one to use will be decided on a case-by-case basis. So there are no clear guidelines for or against Open Source or Free technologies. In recent times though, there is a growing awareness in many official quarters on the advantages of embracing Open Source solutions in public institutions.
