To reduce costs, schools and colleges ready to use open source free software

Since these are free software, the fees that students pay will reduce. Secondly, the licencing cost will also decrease effectively reducing the cost of education

Many teachers and faculty of schools and colleges across the city are willing to use open source computer software for learning. This is because various interactive applications on these software, based on subject-wise learning, can help students. They will also help bring the cost of education down, eliminate the need for licencing and put an end to piracy.

These software are available for all subjects and courses and are an alternative for proprietary ones which have a renewable licence with a heavy fee.

Students can learn subjects like Physics, Chemistry, History, Geography and Mathematics in an interactive way. The applications also impart more than the regular syllabus. Nilesh Ghvate, a professor at Don Bosco Institute of Technology (DBIT), said, “The applications have the basic concepts of any subject and also additional information. The students can refer to it anytime to learn more about various aspects of their syllabus.”

The fees of students and expenditure of education institutions will also reduce if these free software are used. Kranti Ghag, a senior member of the Free Software Movement of Maharashtra, said, “As these are free softwares the fees that students pay will reduce. Secondly, the licencing cost which is generally a huge amount will also decrease. In this way, we can reduce the cost of education and also put an end to privacy.”

Teachers are encouraged to be adopt this idea so that students get a hang of these softwares are at an early age. Schools like St Mary’s School at Mazgaon and engineering colleges like DBIT at Vidyavihar have adopted Linux open source operating system (OS) entirely.

The Linux Users Group (ILUG) is a community of volunteers propagating the use of softwares to transform the education space. The Linux group meets on the 2nd Saturday of every month between 3 pm to 5pm at DBIT at Vidyavihar to help anyone.