MUMBAI, INDIA: Eminent educationists across the country have written to the the Government of Maharashtra, raising serious questions regarding the MOU signed by the education department with Microsoft Corporation.

According to a press release by IT for Change, a Bangalore based NGO working in the area of using technology for social change said, educationists were concerned about the adverse pedagogical implications of the MOU, which in their view may amount to privatization through the backdoor, of some key aspects of India's public education system.

Curriculum design and teacher training are core educational functions and it is inappropriate to outsource ICTs curriculum and training to a private vendor whose core competency is in writing software products and whose main interest is in creating mass markets for their software products.

Click here to see the letter to education secretary, Govt of Maharashtra

Signatories to the letter, included eminent educationists from national bodies like National Knowledge Commission, Central Advisory Board on Education and institutions such as IIM(A), IIM(B), IITK, TIFR, TISS etc.
Many signatories have been members of National Focus groups of the National Curriculum Framework review, 2005, which is acknowledged as a curricular landmark in Indian history, the release said.

Padma Sarangpani, TISS, Mumbai and member of the National Steering Committee, National Curriculum Framework Review 2005 stated that is yet another instance of piecemeal action from the point of view of state policy towards the continuous upgradation of skills through training of government teachers.

She emphasized that what is needed is a coherent policy and framework of action on teacher professional development, within which the norms and scope of participation of private profit making multinational agencies such as Microsoft can be defined and regulated.

Dr Vijaya Mulay, who was member of the National Steering Committee , National Curriculum Framework Review 2005 and headed its National Focus Group on Educational Technology said, “I am shocked that the Maharashtra Government should have yielded to only one kind of technology”.

This MOU promotes the products of a private monopoly with public funds, since the Government will be incurring the costs of the teachers relating to their travel and stay.

Sunil Batra , Centre for Education, Action and Research, New Delhi has deplored the lack of understanding about the kind of training required for teachers, when it comes to the integration of ICT in education and what he termed as “the insidious dependency created on private software” which leads to the “lack of understanding that FOSS is a viable alternative and its use has implications for how schools and the education system learn to use ICT for their advantage now and in the future”.

Under similar MOUs that Microsoft has entered into few other state Governments, Microsoft trains Government school teachers on its proprietary software products. Alternative Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) products that are available are not be allowed by Microsoft to be taught in these academies.

“This can impose huge costs which a developing economy can ill afford. While the teachers will not need to pay Microsoft for learning Microsoft products at the academies; for their own use in their homes, teachers and their students will need to pay significant amounts, which for the 3 lakh teachers and nearly 8 million students in Government schools in Maharashtra would amount to around Rs. 3,000 crores even for the cheaper student edition which retails at 3,500 while the regular version of Microsoft Office retails at around Rs. 14,000,” said Gurumurthy K, director IT for Change.

Knowing this, many governments have consciously chosen FOSS for their schools; Kerala, Gujarat, Karnataka, Assam amongst them.

For Microsoft what appear at its face as corporate social responsibility is a simple case of marketing expenditure for capturing mass captive markets, added the release.