This is dreadfully out of touch and only serves the interests of FOSS advocates, not the students. Give kids the tools that will make them successful in their educational and professional careers. Nobody is using GIMP in the graphic design world.
This statement is false. In my company it is used all the time for any image manipulations, by both graphic designers and managers. Last time I've seen photoshop was maybe in 2007 or so.
Pretty much almost every photograph that you see on a media company website has been touched, color corrected, cropped or otherwise digitally manipulated by Photoshop.
Personally I've worked in VFX, Internet, medical companies, and while there were a few things got photoshoped here and there externally we almost always used something else, whether expensive or free.
I’ll admit it’s value was greater when print publishing was still a thing, but those magazine and newspaper companies that transitioned to digital didn’t necessarily go out and buy all new tools to replace effective tools that already existed, already had a trained base, and already had robust digital asset workflows in place.
I was speaking photo manipulation and I stand by what I said. In the US it’s the tool that is present in every art department of every major media company and advertising agency to manipulate digital photos.
It is true that many people have very limited awareness about options available to them, and thus select the only tool they know. It doesn't mean that their choice is best for their tasks. It is just lack of awareness.
Pros select the tools they need to do their job very intentionally and are likely extremely aware of the alternatives. If I spend 8 hours a day correcting and manipulating photos and choose photoshop as my tool of choice instead of latest random FOSS alternative that is a favorite of some dude who occasionally touches up a photo, my decision might have some weighted reasoning behind it.
But hey, if you have something you feel is better, use it.