I have an issue with CXC's IT coursework, giving SBA's based on Microsoft Office with no alternative.
My 15-yr old son is currently preparing to write CXC exams in May/June. Some of the subjects would have their final marks based on coursework assignments (SBA's), generally due between now and May. He recently got an SBA from the IT course, requiring him to design a mail merge system in MS Word, Excel and Access.
As I do not own the MS Office Suite, I downloaded the trial edition on my netbook just to facilitate his ability to do the coursework. He went by a friend's house so they could work together on it. Unfortunately, while there they came to the realization that the Trial Office edition does not include MS Access. So they went on the friend's system only to get a Genuine Advantage error preventing Office from starting, tipping me off that they had a pirated copy of Office installed.
Many students in the Caribbean may not legitimately have MS Office installed on their home PCs. So they would be forced either to buy it (>TT$2,500) or get a pirated copy from someone so the homework could get done. Some even go so far as to download a 'cracked' copy from certain sites on the Internet, exposing their systems to dangerous trojans or viruses.
This is not right. I refuse to install pirated software so my son could do his homework. In any event, MS Office was never on any booklist, nor was it stated as a pre-requisite for the courses. So why issue an SBA assuming he has it?
Why should CXC favour a commercial package as part of coursework? If the student needs to learn Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Database, etc. a generic free application suite should be used instead. Good suites include OpenOffice, LibreOffice, KOffice or even GoogleDocs. If students happen to have legitimate the Microsoft Suite, they can use that if they wish. Focus should be made on the application genre, not a commercial product!
The argument that the working world uses MS Office is not a good argument. Most people learn to program using Pascal, although professional coders use PHP, Java, Python, C++ and other commercial languages. Why don't the students use another equivalent such as OpenOffice to learn the office productivity software? It is totally free and easily accessible, and can be used on PCs, Macs and Linux systems, thus not locking down students to any OS. They can use it on any system they have and can freely copy it on as much systems as they need without violating any copyright. It is also widely used in educational systems and governments in Australia, Europe and Great Britian.
Why do we have to institutionalize a commercial package in the Caribbean syllabus? This is encouraging piracy as most would not buy this package if it did not come pre-installed on their systems.
As an IT professional, I have lost count of the amount of times that people have come up to me asking if I had 'a copy of' Office 2007 to install on their system. I would tell them the cost of the package and they would 'bawl', but still beg for me to put it on for them anyways. I still put on OpenOffice.org and in many cases they see that it can do all the major things they need to do, including reading and writing in Microsoft file formats. I may alo point out cloud services such as GoogleDocs or ZOHO Office that can also facilitate all their application needs. Yet, in spite of my efforts, aome clients still get a pirated copy from someone else and install it anyway. You see, the 'syllabus' specifically mentions 'Microsoft' products.
Even if it is said that Microsoft has a downloadable free trial edition of Office 2007 or 2010 online, good for 25 uses, thus sufficient for completing the coursework, the SBA requires MS Access which is not included in the free trial. What is the student left to do? Find someone to pirate and edition that includes Access.
It is wrong to institutionalize piracy in this way.
It is wrong!!
