Wed, 27 Apr 2005

Free software, used computers given to schools

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

As part of efforts to fight software piracy across the country, Microsoft Indonesia has since 2003 handed out 30,000 original software packages together with second-hand personal computers (PCs) to around 15,000 schools and universities across the country.

The schools, ranging from elementary schools to universities, however, were still required to pay an annual copyright fee of US$2.50.

"We have managed to change illegal software used by 15,000 schools throughout the country with legal ones and we hope that we can continue doing the same thing with other schools," Microsoft Indonesia Public Sector Education Program Manager M.H. Marta Adi Darma said on Tuesday.

Marta said that Microsoft had also managed to gather secondhand Pentium II and Pentium III PCs from other companies, including banks and oil companies, and handed them over to the schools.

He said that Microsoft distributed PCs to the schools because they were concerned about the low level of PC ownership in Indonesia.

The ratio of PC ownership in Indonesia stands at 1:847 for Java and 1:1,900 for areas outside Java.

As a way of comparison, the PC ratio is 1:19 in Singapore.

Microsoft's Public Sector Director Andreas Pardyanto said that they charged the schools only to make students and teachers appreciate the value of intellectual property inside the software.

"We decided to give the schools a special price and treatment because Microsoft wants to raise awareness of intellectual property rights early on. Later on, they will get used to using original software," he said.

Aside from the free original software and hardware, the company has also signed an agreement on the use of original software with many universities and schools throughout the country.

"We will also train school teachers across the country to manage their schools so that they can raise money to finance school programs," he said after signing a memorandum of understanding with President University in the Jababeka Industrial area, Cikarang, West Java on Tuesday.

In line with the program and objective of upgrading the knowledge and skills of teachers in school management, Microsoft is cooperating with President University to launch a four-day training program for 137 high school teachers and principals from all over the country.

President University CEO Hasan M. Soedjono said that the program showed that the university was committed to helping high schools across the country improve in terms of quality and capability to face tighter global competition in the future.

"We are concerned about the quality of output from high schools as they will become our input, which later will affect our quality as well. If we want to raise the quality of high school students then we should pay attention also to the teachers," he said.

Hasan said that his university would continue cooperating with Microsoft to train teachers in other subjects and equipping the campus with the latest information technology.

"We want our students to be able to study anywhere and anytime on any subject. All they have to do is connect their PCs to their campus' system," he said.