Red Hat, provider of open-source solutions, and the Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII's) Shiksha India Trust today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to modernize the Indian education system.

Under the agreement, Red Hat and Shiksha will make the latest in Information Technology and educational content, available to educational institutions across the country. The objective of the agreement is to make software and content more affordable to the education system here.

Shiksha India is a not-for-profit initiative by CII, to bring in education equity through technology. Shiksha has developed educational content, that it is distributing free of cost to schools.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Y S Rajan, principal adviser - CII, said, "India has the second largest education system in the world, and there is an urgent need to modernize it using information technology. We have therefore developed content that we offer free to educational institutions. As our Honorable President, APJ Abdul Kalam has pointed out, open-source can serve as a tool for modernizing India. We are therefore happy to work with Red Hat to deploy our content and open-source software in the service of Indian education."

"Even the CII-Shiksha contents for teaching in schools is based on the open-source concept. We will let capable and motivated teachers to creatively modify the content, and to give a distinct flavour to suit the local conditions and use it for teaching in other languages. It is a living organism to be a part of the students, teachers and parents," said Rajan.

Javed Tapia, president - Red Hat, Indian Subcontinent, said, "We are pleased to tie-up with a premier organization like CII, to address an area that impacts India's future. This agreement signifies the growing acceptance of Open Source in India. We will work with Shiksha India to create a community of Indian educators, to create content and software that can be shared freely among educational institutions."

Venkatesh Hariharan, head - open source affairs, Red Hat India, said, "The CII Shiksha India trust is doing great work in making education technology affordable. We will bring our open-source skills to complement Shiksha India's efforts, by mapping the wealth of open-source software available globally to the Indian syllabus. The need of the hour is affordable technology solutions, and open-source software can help the Indian education system modernize itself rapidly."