On 2003-12-07 11:53:55 +0000 Ben Francis ben@franci5.fsnet.co.uk wrote:
As far as they're concerned the best way to prepare their students for the future is to teach them to use the tools they're most likely to use.
This may work for the 15-18 age range and equip them for a couple of years, but that is still only a small fraction of school students. It's a very short term view, not really preparing for the future.
It's also harder for schools to get cheap support for a Linux system.
How do you know this? Generally, they don't even seem to look.
The ISP being used by pretty much every school in Lincolnshire (my home ground) does not support Linux
Is that legal? Smells anti-competitive to me if this is a formal undertaking rather than just informal pressure.
The truth of the matter is that if a school were to switch all its desktop machines to Linux today, it would be left out in the cold.
Is Skegness Grammar out in the cold?
[...] The FOSS development model sits much more nicely within the principles of education.
I agree and hope to see some from your area at FLOSSIE (see http://www.schoolforge.org.uk/ for info).