Over the years, the internet has evolved into a crucial element for achieving equitable development and expanding educational opportunities.
On Tuesday Sandile Dube, the MD of Equinix SA, shone a spotlight on internet access.
During his keynote address at the 2024 Pan African DataCentres Exhibition and Conference held at the Sandton Convention Centre, Dube asked a provocative question: “How many schools across Africa do not have internet access?” He highlighted the critical issue of digital connectivity in education and honing digital skills among schoolgoers across the continent.
Dube’s presentation focused on cloud solutions in Africa offered by several data centre providers, such as Equinix, that are expanding across the continent.
Despite the uncertainty among conference delegates, who estimated that 50,000 to 1-million schools on the continent had no internet access, Dube emphasised the urgency of addressing the evident deficiency. However, precise statistics on school connectivity in Africa are scarce.
Listening to Dube reminded me of an initiative called Giga — a global collaboration between Unicef and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), aimed at connecting every school to the internet by 2030. According to Giga, 1.3-billion school-age children lack internet access at home, and only half of the world’s schools are connected.
This digital divide is even more severe in Africa, where only 37% of the population uses the internet, and costs are five times higher than the global average. Giga has already connected more than 2,300 schools and over 1-million children on the continent. It says connecting every school in Africa by 2030 requires a collective effort from development partners, governments and industry suppliers.
Dube’s argument pointed out a paradox: while Africa’s mobile networks and data centres invest heavily in digital infrastructure, they neglect to ensure internet access for schoolgoers. This oversight hampers the preparation of students for careers in emerging fields such as data centre specialisation, cybersecurity and new intelligent era jobs in areas like generative artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Access to the internet is foundational for digital transformation and inclusiveness. Schools without internet access reflect a broader issue of exclusion, denying essential digital opportunities to those who need them most.
Dube posed two more critical questions: “How will we transform our African economies?” and: “How will we create jobs if we do not start at schools?”
Doreen Bogdan-Martin, secretary-general of the ITU, recently emphasised that the solution involves ensuring that people on the continent not only use the technology but also find it functional and affordable.
Encouragingly, some African operators have already taken steps to democratise access to online learning.
For instance, Vodacom’s e-School had 1.4-million users in 2023, providing free access to digital learning materials for SA students from grades R to 12. Similarly, Safaricom’s partnership with Zeraki in Kenya offers interactive digital learning resources and a school management system to enhance educational administration.
Moreover, MTN, Vodacom, Telkom and Cell C have zero-rated specified educational websites in SA to promote access to digital resources.
Huawei’s DigiSchool project, in partnership with local operator Rain and the educational nonprofit Click Foundation, has connected more than 100 urban and rural primary schools to the internet since its launch in July 2020.
Huawei’s Tech4All Digital Schools Programme, launched in 2021, addresses key aspects of digital education, including high-speed connections, training content and teacher capability improvement, aiming to enhance students’ ICT skills and language learning through online platforms.
Despite these initiatives, the journey towards an inclusive and sustainable digital future in Africa is far from complete. Many young Africans graduate from high school but remain unable to secure jobs in the digital economy, which offers numerous opportunities facilitated by ongoing investments in digital infrastructure. The curriculum offered in schools must be changed as it is failing to prepare young Africans for the digital economy.
To bridge this digital divide and improve access to quality education, the World Economic Forum advocates for inclusive and innovative methods to impart digital skills to young Africans in rural, underserved and marginalised areas, thus enhancing their potential to participate actively in the digital and knowledge economies.
By heeding Dube’s call, industry players, regulators and governments can ensure that students are online from a young age, laying the foundation for a more inclusive and prosperous future.
• Lourie is founder and editor of TechFinancials.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.