Kerala's IT@School project will go to Sri Lanka soon provided the State Government gives it the green signal.
At the Global Education Technology Summit 2008-Asia Conference which is getting underway in Kuala Lumpur, Sri Lankan Minister for Education, A D Susil Premayajantha, has invited the IT@School team to advise them on implementing a project on the lines of Kerala.
Moreover, Sri Lanka and China have been attracted to the free software model for the school education just like Kerala's project.
“Sri Lankan Education Minister, Susil Premajayantha has invited us to advise on implementing an IT project on the lines of IT @ School project of Kerala. But they will have to send a formal proposal to Kerala Government which they are expected to do immediately,” said K. Anvar Sadath, Executive Director of IT@School Project, Kerala.
“Given the fact that India already has strong relationship with Sri Lanka as a SAARC country in providing power, solar panels etc, there may not be any problem in materialising the proposal,” he said.
Electricity and connectivity are costlier in that country and the student computer ratio there is 1:130 now, which they are planning to bring down to 1:75.
Delegates from countries like China and Sri Lanka are more interested in making Kerala a model in adopting free software for school education system, he said.
“Though Singapore is having high level IT infrastructure, they find it very difficult to convince the teachers to use ICT,” said Anvar Sadath. They want to deploy Open Source mainly for reducing the licence cost, he said.
Deputy Minister for Education M Satchithananthan and G. M. Niel Gunadasan, Director, ICT, also took part in the discussions with Anvar Sadath.
