Already nine out of Icelands 35 upper-secondary schools have expressed interest to participate in Iceland's project on open source in education.

Iceland's ministry of education is about to start a campaign to encourage schools do more with this type of software. It has reserved five million ISK (about 27,000 euro) for the campaign next year.

"We want to encourage educational institutions to take up use of open and free software in greater numbers, so it can increase the use of ICT in learning and teaching", the ministry announced on 13 August. "Students should learn about this type of software, so they can improve their skills and teachers should use it to to diversify their teaching methods."

The ministry says that schools can also achieve savings by switching to open source.

According to Sigurbjörg Jóhannesdóttir, advisor at the ministry, the  nine schools and the ministry will soon determine how to run the project and how to involve even more schools.

The project has yet to begin, she says. "We are getting introduced to one another, so we can learn what schools are already doing on open source and open standards."

The schools are preparing reports on successes and failures and the ministry wants to gather materials on similar projects in other countries. "We hope this can help us on our path."

The ministry is also planning to evaluate in early 2010 and 2011 if schools, staff and pupils are using open source and if they have increased their use open source software.

More information:

Statement by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (in Icelandic)

Iceland open source policy (in Icelandic)