Faizel Patel – 23/06/2020
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The impact of COVID-19 has had far-reaching consequences with education and schools among many other sectors that have not been spared.
In order to ensure that learning continues, Vodacom Business and Microsoft South Africa have joined forces to provide access to continuous, connected digital learning for South Africa’s education institutions, educators and learners through their Connected Digital Education initiative.
The partnership brings together two companies who have invested extensively in education to deliver solutions that address the immediate and long-term needs of education in the country.
The Connected Digital Education Platform enables remote learning with affordable connectivity, ultimately turning the learning environment into a single, simple solution for the learner and giving them access to the tools, apps and resources they need to learn.
It also 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 Teams, OneNote, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel.
Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub says they are fundamentally accelerating digital transformation in education through online learning now and well into the future.
“As a company with a purpose to connect for a better future, we are leveraging our ongoing partnership with Microsoft to provide educational institutions, from schools through to universities, with an education bundle of data at an affordable rate to participating institutions.”
With the 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.
Managing Director at Microsoft South Africa Lillian Barnard says the ability to bring together learning into one hub or solution is invaluable, and forms an important part of our commitment to building a complete education solution with critical partnerships with organisations like Vodacom Business.
“This empowers both educators and learners, and enables learning to continue in a seamless manner, which is a priority for Microsoft as we aim to ensure that South African learners are equipped with the right tools and skills needed to make them future-ready.
Vodacom Business and Microsoft say they are committed to supporting the digitisation of education in South Africa and believe that through investing in education, they are investing in the long-term economic growth and prosperity of the country.
Education institutions wanting to use the Connected Digital Education Solution can find out more on Vodacom Business’s:
https://www.vodacombusiness.co.za/business/connected-education.
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