A more pressing issue for me however is that the curriculum requires proprietary software when high quality, open source alternatives exist.
I understand how prevalent Windows and MS Office are in the workplace and I’m not certainly not suggesting that they should not be taught at all, but proprietary systems should be an optional extra, reserved for wealthier schools.
Are you high? If the department of Education actually did their job, they could massively save with academic licenses from Microsoft that could have been upgraded ages ago. My concern isn't as much to how much this costs (as they can afford to have it in ALL schools), my concern lies in the education of the actual teacher and if they're competent enough to educate the students with the newer technology that is out there. I've seen many teachers double as "computer science" teachers and they mostly don't have a clue!
Segregating schools by saying that wealthier schools should teach with MS products but lower-budget schools should use Linux is just plain stupid. Again, its the department of Education's prerogative to negotiate cheaper bulk pricing from institutions like MS when it comes to licensing. Hell, I'd even go as far as to say this **** needs to come from the President himself!
The option should be there yes
Nothing is stopping the actual curriculum from changing and teaching them basic Linux skills by dual-booting machines etc. It (again) comes down to the fact that teachers don't have the skills TO teach the students another OS. (Picard, can you chime in if you see this thread please?)
You need to realize that the world is mostly MS-driven (even though it's slowly changing of course), but if you want to give a student the tools to find a job after their education, it's a *must* that they have these sets of skills and it's important not to blindly separate the wealthy from the poor, which in my opinion, would automatically disqualify the education the "poor" received to go out and perform tasks in the real world.
The reason I say this is very simple, and you guys might have forgotten this since you're most probably in the IT industry and/or interested in PC/Technology in a way that makes you want to learn more/figure stuff out. But the majority of the students (and anyone out there looking for a job or higher education) are parrots at best and if you educated them in a specific OS, would almost be clueless when presented with a different OS.
Sure, the "skill" of using the PC would be there (double clicking/dragging etc), but the programs and interface would be wildly different. It's almost the same when you teach exclusively on Mac OS and then give the student a job which uses PC's with only MS OS on there.
The student will naturally gravitate towards Linux/Open Source if they have the curiosity we have here and want to broaden their horizons. The handful of employers who do use Linux exclusively would understand, and give special attention to, any new Linux users IF they only have an MS background. However the opposite is rarely true, and would mostly end up costing them the opportunity for employment.
Apartheid is dead. Walking into a wealthy school should feel similar to walking into a poor(er) school. The education should be the same across the board and not depend on who has enough money. Training of the teachers is essential. Adjusting the curriculum to adopt the new things technology gives us every few years (as with new OS releases) is essential.
Finding teachers who can adopt and change just as fast is damn near required.
Reiterating my previous point, teachers who are dropped into the position of teaching computer science at school who doesn't have the required training and/or follows whatever is set out in the curriculum word for word and regurgitate because government is unable to adopt just as fast (even though they ****ing ruined the education system IMO by changing basics that worked for decades) is the problem here. Not the cost of running a propriety piece of software that would give the student the best chance in the quest to find work.
