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Summary:

Timothée Giet, the co-maintainer of the free educational software “GCompris,” visited Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) in India. GCompris is heavily used in Kerala schools for ICT education, specifically in the ‘Kalipetty’ program. Giet praised Kerala’s use of free software in education as a global model. KITE announced plans to create Tamil and Kannada versions of GCompris and will also adapt the software for children with special needs. Giet’s wife, Aishwarya K.K., who is a free software consultant shared that her experience with the IT@School project enabled her to have a successful career.

News Article:

Kerala’s Free Software Education Model Lauded by GCompris Co-Maintainer

Thiruvananthapuram, October 28, 2025 – Kerala’s widespread adoption of free and open-source software (FOSS) in education has been praised as a “global model” by Timothée Giet, co-maintainer of the popular educational software “GCompris.” Giet visited Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) on Tuesday to discuss the continued development and implementation of the software within the state’s curriculum.

GCompris, which features around 200 educational games covering topics from numeracy to geography, is a cornerstone of Kerala’s “Kalipetty” (Play Box) program, an ICT textbook used in classes I to IV. KITE CEO K. Anvar Sadath affirmed KITE’s commitment to expanding the reach of GCompris, announcing plans to create customized Tamil and Kannada language packages for integration into the global software repository. Currently, Malayalam (along with Sanskrit) is the only Indian language with an extensive GCompris repository.

“Kerala’s unique and widespread use of free software in schools was a global model,” said Giet, who also shared insights into FOSS repositories used in France and Italy.

Furthering their commitment to inclusive education, KITE will also be working on customizing the new client-server version of GCompris, which can function offline, for use with children with special needs.

Giet’s wife, Aishwarya K.K., a Kannur native and free software consultant, also spoke to the importance of the IT@School project in building the foundation for her career.

The visit underscores Kerala’s leading role in leveraging FOSS for educational empowerment and highlights the potential for other regions to adopt similar models.

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