Title :
UBURYO: Open source software for managing microcredits in education
Author :
Ramirez-Robles, Maximo ; Munoz-Hernandez, Susana
Author_Institution :
Comput. Sci. Sch., Univ. Politec. de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Abstract :
One of the major problems in developing countries is minority access to higher education. Traditional scholarships usually focus on paying tuition fees for bringing brilliant students to developed countries (from where they seldom return). But local grants seldom target the more needy students. We propose a system of student loans to pay tuition fees in exchange for technical work. This appears to be a satisfactory and sustainable solution. We also provide UBURYO (a Kirundi word meaning opportunity). UBURYO is the free open source software, that we have developed, to manage this loan system in a simple, trustworthy, fair and efficient way.
Keywords :
educational administrative data processing; finance; further education; public domain software; UBURYO; free open source software; higher education; microcredits; student loans; Educational institutions; Employment; International Committee; Open source software; Scholarships; attracting; collaborative software; computer and web based software; development of education; engaging and retaining human talent to engineering; open source; web 2.0;
Conference_Titel :
Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2012 IEEE
Conference_Location :
Marrakech
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-1457-2
Electronic_ISBN :
2165-9559
DOI :
10.1109/EDUCON.2012.6201052