OVER the years we have covered examples where Microsoft pretty much bribed nations in order to prevent them from teaching anything other than Microsoft at schools. It is too hard to forget what Microsoft did to Russian schools when they were planning to move to GNU/Linux.
"The idea of indoctrination for lock-in and corporate goals (at taxpayers' expense) is not a novel one."This new report, titled "Microsoft wins spot in school curriculum" (euphemisms galore), gives us a new example of the above pattern. It says: "In a move that will be hailed both as in the interest of preparing children for the workforce and as a commercial creep into the school yard, Microsoft has won the right to be featured in the Queensland's high school curriculum.
"From next year, students in 275 high schools will be able to gain credit toward their leaving certificates for completing units from the Microsoft IT Academy’s suite of 400 online courses.
"Units cover topics from basic internet security to technical certifications for enterprise software products such as SQL Server and SharePoint.
"A spokesperson for the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment (DETE) said the courses would be integrated predominately into maths subjects and vocational courses, such as certificates in IT and business. The program has been piloted at Albany Creek High School this year."
What's beyond comprehensible if why the author of this article won't point out the obvious. Being corporate press, this is probably expected, but to describe this as some sort of "job creator" is beyond silly; it is malicious. Australia needs to build its own s and in order to achieve this it needs to adopt Free/libre technologies as Squiz did (a CMS made in Australia, now widely used in government). To shove Microsoft down children's throat because it's "in the curriculum" is clearly corruption, but Microsoft has made it so standard that many people are blind to the fact. ⬆