14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has recently purchased GitHub in a move that was received with mixed feelings by the developer community, but the company has promised to keep the service’s culture untouched, while helping it advance forward with a series of improvements.
The first major change after Microsoft's GitHub takeover announcement was confirmed a few minutes ago: GitHub Education will be completely free for schools.
This decision, however, does not come totally out of the blue. GitHub has already tested this free product with a limited number of schools, and the service was previously offered at no cost to students and teachers. But following today's announcement, GitHub for Education comes with a series of advantages to provide schools with the necessary tools for classroom use.
School requirements
“GitHub Education includes access to GitHub, an ever-growing suite of developer tools in the Student Developer Pack, workflows for teachers in GitHub Classroom, and training through Campus Experts and Campus Advisors,” GitHub explained in the announcement.
“Now we are putting all of these tools and programs together—along with free access to our Business Plan and GitHub Enterprise, so your entire school can get on board at no cost.”
There are several requirements that must be met in order for a school to become eligible for GitHub Education without any extra fee.
First and foremost, schools must offer GitHub to all technical departments and display their logo on the official website of the service as a GitHub Education school. Then, each school must receive announcements from GitHub Education and appoint an administrator to go through a teacher training program for each department using the service.
Schools that are interested in participating in GitHub's new program can apply on this page. The company says that each school will be contacted as soon as possible to discuss eligibility.
CORRECTION: The article previously indicated that the announcement was coming from Microsoft. Updated to correctly point to GitHub as the source of the announcement.