{"id":653468,"date":"2026-06-11T12:57:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=653468"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:57:53","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T10:57:53","slug":"south-africas-digital-future-starts-with-school-it-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/industrynews\/653468-south-africas-digital-future-starts-with-school-it-infrastructure.html","title":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s digital future starts with school IT infrastructure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>By Lunga Siyo, Telkom Consumer and Small Business CEO<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa cannot keep talking about AI, future jobs, and digital competitiveness while large parts of basic education still lack secure, connected, usable digital environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a growing disconnect between the country\u2019s digital ambition and its actual level of digital readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/group.telkom.co.za\/telkomfoundation\/who-we-are.html?utm_source=MyBroadband&amp;utm_medium=Sponsored+Article&amp;utm_term=June+2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn how the Telkom Foundation is working to change this.<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>While the national conversation has moved towards advanced digital capability, the reality inside many schools is still shaped by uneven IT infrastructure, limited connectivity, and digital environments that are not always designed for regular use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ICT lab has, in many ways, become a familiar symbol of intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These projects remain necessary, but too often they are treated as something implemented and then forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, the digital divide is no longer defined only by whether learners can access the internet, but by whether they get consistent, practical exposure to the tools and systems that modern education and the workplace now take for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more important question is what sits behind that lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A school IT environment depends on physical space, power, security, connectivity, networking equipment, devices, content platforms, teacher support, and maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without that underlying infrastructure, technology can remain present but peripheral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learners may see devices, but not use them often enough to build the confidence, habits, and familiarity they will need in further education, work, public services, and the wider digital economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thubalethu Secondary School<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Thubalethu Secondary School in KwaMaqoma, previously Fort Beaufort, shows what this looks like at school level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The school serves more than 750 learners and is a Quintile 3 public school in South Africa\u2019s lower-income school category, where learners do not pay school fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a town where distance and uneven digital access remain part of people\u2019s daily lives, school-level infrastructure is an important part of digital inclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Telkom implemented a fully functional ICT lab, including 40 user terminals, a server, interactive teaching technology, and connectivity via Telkom\u2019s network infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-653486\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu_Cutting-Ribbon-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It also included refurbishing the classroom space, upgrading the electrical system, and installing security measures so that the lab can be used consistently and safely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The project is important because the lab was treated as a working environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The classroom, power supply, connectivity, teaching technology, and security all had to support regular use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is not separate from Telkom\u2019s broader role in South Africa\u2019s digital future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same logic that drives investment in networks, connectivity, and digital infrastructure at the national scale also applies at the school level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reaching classrooms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If the digital backbone is to have meaning to all South Africans, it has to reach the classrooms where digital confidence is first developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Digital participation depends on regular use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learners need to engage with technology often enough for it to become part of how they learn, complete tasks, solve problems, and prepare for environments beyond school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without that repeated exposure, access remains superficial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is why isolated infrastructure projects need to be embedded within a broader education support model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Telkom Foundation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Telkom Group and Telkom Foundation support spans academic programmes, ICT integration, teacher development, psychosocial services, and digital skills training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the past year alone, more than 39,000 learners were reached through online learning platforms, with a further 3,600 supported through face-to-face academic programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over 1,500 teachers have been trained to integrate technology into their classrooms, while psychosocial support initiatives have reached more than one million learners and community members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Within that model, Thubalethu is one example of how infrastructure, connectivity, teacher enablement, and learner exposure need to work together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It creates a setting in which learners can begin to engage with digital tools in a way that is practical, repeatable, and aligned to how those tools are used beyond the classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A learner with intermittent exposure to technology is not entering the same environment as one who has worked consistently in a functional digital setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That gap carries through into tertiary education, the workplace, and long-term economic participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-653487\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Thubalethu-Group-Photo-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building digital infrastructure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa continues to expand its network capacity and connectivity footprint. That expansion is vital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Digital infrastructure is the starting point. Its value is further strengthened when people are equipped to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It creates the possibility of inclusion. Whether that translates into participation depends on whether there is a workforce capable of using, maintaining, and building on that infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A country that invests in advanced digital capability without strengthening its starting point risks uneven outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Opportunity expands, but only for those already equipped to take advantage of it. Inclusion becomes selective rather than systemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The work being done through Telkom programmes, such as the Youth ICT Skills Development initiative, in partnership with MICT SETA, is intended to address that progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Structured training, accreditation, and workplace exposure build on the foundation established at the school level, creating a pathway from early access to employability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what makes projects like Thubalethu still matter &#8211; not because they are new, but because they address the part of the system that is easiest to overlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The future is now<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>South Africa\u2019s digital future will depend on whether the country is willing to invest in the unglamorous school-level infrastructure where digital capability first takes root.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That work is not always visible, nor does it move at the pace of the broader digital conversation. But it determines whether that conversation translates into real participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A country can build networks at scale. The more difficult task is ensuring that those networks are matched by people who are ready to use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/group.telkom.co.za\/telkomfoundation\/who-we-are.html?utm_source=MyBroadband&amp;utm_medium=Sponsored+Article&amp;utm_term=June+2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here to learn how the Telkom Foundation is working to change this.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the digital backbone is to have meaning to all South Africans, it has to reach the classrooms where digital confidence is first developed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341030,"featured_media":653485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28937],"tags":[109],"class_list":["post-653468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industrynews","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653468"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":653489,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653468\/revisions\/653489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}