Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

In particular, the Department of General Education of the state of Kerala (more than 12,000 schools, about 6 million students, and about 200,000 teachers [1]) heavily promotes FOSS software both as a medium of teaching (all subjects, not just ICT) and as a tool for administration. This initiative is called the "IT@School Project" [2], and they develop and use their own customized version of Ubuntu (called "IT@School GNU/Linux" [3]) in all their schools. They do quite a bit of customization to adapt available FOSS software to the needs of their audience (which is drawn from all strata of society; this is (almost) free and compulsory education provided by the state).

The project uses customized FOSS software, such as Dr. Geo, Rasmol, K-Tech lab, Geogebra, Chemtool, and Kalcium [4], to teach various subjects. They also have ICT as a separate subject starting from Class 4 (9-year olds). As part of this, they start teaching programming (in Python, and using games, graphics, and other age-appropriate methods, and starting very gently) from Class 4. (They also teach a lot of other stuff.)

The project implements a lot of e-governance programs using FOSS software. This includes [4]:

1. A single-window admission system for higher-secondary education

2. Computerization of the program of providing free lunch in schools

3. Online transfer and posting of teachers

4. Software for administering the state's annual Youth Festival (Arts competitions. Around 10,000 participants this year, often touted as Asia's largest such event.)

5. ERP software for arts festivals at the school level.

6. Software for administering scholarships

7. Centralised online textbook intend system

8. Payroll administration for teachers and other staff in the department

9. Software for monitoring physical fitness programmes in schools

(In case you are wondering: every school is provided a (paid-for) broadband connection as well.)

They estimate that the shift to FOSS has saved the state quite a bit of money already [5]:

"The Project has supplied thousands of computers and laptops to schools in the state. about 50,000 computers to schools. The proprietary OS and other application software come with a price tag of about Rs. 10,000/- per PC. By deploying Free Software based Operating System and applications instead of Proprietary software , IT@School Project is able to save an amount of Rs.11 Crores (Rs. 110 million) each year. Also the Educational content like interactive multimedia CDs are now being developed on free software platform, resulting in a savings of Rs. 75 lakhs (Rs. 7.5 million). The examination software which was developed using free software has effected in a savings of about Rs. 25 lakhs (Rs. 2.5 millon)."

[1] https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php

[2] https://www.itschool.gov.in/

[3] https://www.itschool.gov.in/downloads.php

[4] https://www.itschool.gov.in/activities.php

[5] https://www.itschool.gov.in/otherprograms.php#6

(Edit: Minor fixes, formatting.)

Yes. You'd think that they would have moved to open source already if they could. Impending end of support for XP was no secret nor unexpected.

Every new big player means "more eyes" on the code. And bugs get rooted out quicker.

In the case of proprietary software, every new big player means "more social lock in effect".

This might be because you are an Indian and the only hackers you know are Indian.

The schools in Kerala, India use only Linux OS.