Making the CBSE syllabus vendor-neutral

My friend, Jaijit and others are working on making the CBSE syllabus vendor-neutral. The CBSE syllabus touches the lives of around 201 million students and the current syllabus mandates specific brand names and is not vendor-neutral. We believe that this benefits monopoly software vendors and leads to a technology dependence that is not healthy for our country in the long run.

All we are asking for is that brand names should not be mandated because:

A) The education system must teach *principles* and not *products.* For example, we should teach "word processing" and not XYZ brand of word processor.

B) This deprives students and teachers of the ability to use products that suit their needs and their budgets.

The CBSE Syllabus can be examined at:

1) Secondary Curriculum 2010,INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY(CODE No. 165)

Unit 2-IT TOOLS mandates Windows GUI basics while Unit-3 mandates MSOffice and its practicals.

RECOMMENDATION: This should be changed to "User Interfaces" and "Office Productivity Applications."

2) Senior School Curriculum 2009,Informatics Practices (Code 065)


Unit -I Computer System And Business Applications:Windows,Unit 2 Introduction to Programming:Visual Basic,UNIT 3 RDBMS:ORACLE XII:Unit 2:Visual Basic,Unit 3 RDBMS:PL/SQL

RECOMMENDATION: This should be changed to "Operating Systems" and the mention of specific brand names in "Introduction to Programming" and "RDBMS" should be dropped.

Shyam, Anivar and others helped put together the Syllabus Review Wiki from where this information was culled. Thanks folks!

If you (or someone you know) can help in making the CBSE syllabus vendor-neutral, please do pitch in and help.

Call for volunteers: Syllabus change drive

The more I talk to my friends in industry and the free and open source
software communities, the more I am convinced that one of the most
important things we can do is to get open source software a part of the
syllabus.

One of the first things we need to make this happen is to rid the
syllabus of its proprietary bias. If you or your friends come across
examples where the syllabus mandates proprietary software, please report
it at the Syllabus Change page (thanks to Anivar for setting this up):

http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Syllabus_Review

Wherever possible, add links to the syllabus and descriptions of the
proprietary bias in the syllabus. We will take this issue up with the
education ministry and all the major political parties in India.

Let us ensure that the next generation of Indian students grow up as an
open source generation!