Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education extends support to Tamil and Kannada students through content development

Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) has integrated Tamil and Kannada language content into educational entertainment free software ‘GCompris.’

In what is regarded a significant contribution to the global Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community, the latest version of GCompris features the localised content developed by KITE, which was originally designed for the ‘Kalipetti’ (Play Box) ICT textbooks used by students in Classes I to IV under the Kerala State syllabus.

According to an official release, this initiative marks a major expansion, previously limited to Sanskrit and Malayalam, into other regional languages. Although Kerala provides textbooks in Tamil and Kannada media for students in its border areas and linguistic minority schools, the lack of such content in the global GCompris repository had previously led KITE to develop its own localised solutions within the KITE GNU/Linux operating suite.

In play store

KITE has prepared 1,544 Graphical User Interface (GUI) translations and voice-overs in Tamil and 1,582 in Kannada. The contribution has been formally approved by the KDE Community, one of the world’s largest collectives of free software developers, and is now available across platforms including the Google Play Store.

GCompris comprises nearly 200 activities designed to help children of age up to ten years master skills in numeracy, literacy, science and geography through play.