Last year, Romanian supermarket chain Profi donated laptops running Edubuntu Linux to schools in that country. Quoting Romanian TV station Pro TV, Joinup, the EU’s public sector open source news website, now reports today that some of those schools are letting their donated laptops gather dust because the teachers don’t know how to use Linux. In at least one school the laptops are still in their boxes, whilst other schools have replaced Edubuntu and its bundled software with Windows and proprietary alternatives.
About half of the 1,800 laptops donated to schools are still not being unused, according to Pro TV.
Writing on its website, Pro TV states that only a few teachers know how to use Linux. When asked about the laptops gathering dust, one headteacher is reported to have said: “It is impossible for teachers to teach using two different programs.” Pro TV also quotes one IT specialist who stated that it would take just a few weeks to learn how to use the laptops. “It is easy and the great advantage is that it is free.”
Romanian free and open source advocates are concerned upset about teachers’ poor IT skills. “I’ve been contacting the Linux groups across the country to get them to help the schools get started”, says Răzvan Sandu. “But it is possible that schools will hesitate to accept help from outsiders.”