Partnering to bring the power of connected digital education to SA’s educators and learners

By Lillian Barnard, Managing Director of Microsoft South Africa and William Mzimba, Chief Executive Officer of Vodacom Business

Nelson Mandela had much to say about the power of education. One of his famous sayings was, “No country can really develop unless its citizens are educated”. Nothing could be truer. Education serves as the stepping stone to greater things and helping people build better lives: the acquisition of knowledge, critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities and skills opens up valuable income-earning opportunities through quality jobs and entrepreneurship.

Education in South Africa is facing a number of challenges, however in our current situation, where there is a growing need for remote learning, one of the main challenges for learners is a lack of access to continuous, connected learning facilitated by the right tools, apps and resources. These would allow educators and learners to communicate and share content such as lessons and assignments with each other even if education could not continue in-person and a blended approach was needed.

This is why both Microsoft South Africa and Vodacom Business are committed to investing in initiatives and solutions that help improve education in the country – particularly in terms of driving access to the tools, apps and resources our young people need to learn. 

We are two companies who have invested extensively in education to deliver solutions that address the immediate and long-term needs of education in the country, and this partnership speaks to our shared and ongoing commitment to transforming education through digitization. We believe that through investing in education in South Africa, we are investing in the long-term economic growth and prosperity of our country.

That was the seed our Connected Digital Education initiative was born out of.

Together, we recognised the need to deliver digital classroom solutions that meet the educational needs of learners through a secure combination of connectivity, collaboration, communication and educational tools and resources.  

Combining the power of connectivity and remote learning resources

Our Connected Digital Education Platform is a trusted education platform that enables remote learning with affordable connectivity, ultimately turning the learning environment into a single, simple solution for the learner.

The solution provides access to cost-effective data and educational apps and resources through Vodacom Business’s Edu Data Bundle and Microsoft Office 365 Education, a cloud-based service which offers the key Microsoft productivity apps like Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Teams and OneNote.

With our Connected Digital Education Platform, educators are able to continue to deliver classes to their learners, who can participate through chat or voice using a SIM card where access to Teams is provided for free. This allows them to continue learning regardless of where they are or what device they are using – whether it be an Android, iOS or Windows smartphone, tablet or laptop.

What makes this initiative particularly important for us is that it addresses the short-term need for virtual classroom, while education institutions are partially closed, by giving educators and learners access to the tools and resources they need to teach and learn respectively.

However, it also addresses the overarching need to provide learners with the tools that will equip them with technological fluency, high-level knowledge skills and an agile mind-set that embraces innovation and creativity – the skills that are needed for future employability.

We are extremely excited about this initiative and cannot wait to see how it unfolds as we continue to collaborate as partners. It has reminded us of the value and impact such partnerships have. This includes the reminder that the ability to bring together learning into one hub or solution is invaluable, and forms an important part of our collective commitment to building a complete education solution.

This is why we remain committed to empowering every learner and educator to achieve and become more, as well as to act as an enabler for the broader development and digitisation of education in South Africa.

Both educators and learners need all the support they can get to enable an engaging and connected remote learning environment. We want to ensure that they have all the tools and resources needed to create collaborative virtual classrooms that truly enable connected and continuous learning.

If you are an education institution wanting to use the Connected Digital Education Solution, you can find out more on Vodacom Business’s website here or contact your account manager.