Education creates a successful future, a right that most South Africans were denied until 1994. Now, the nation’s constitution protects the right to education for all, and every year, parents and their children hope to get into the best schools in their area. The Gauteng Department of Education, realising that the application process was complicated and time-consuming for all stakeholders, partnered with Vodacom to find a digital solution.
The challenge
South Africans’ hunger for education has traditionally resulted in a complicated schools application process. Parents often take time off from work and queue overnight to apply at the schools of their choice. They also generally apply to several schools, increasing the chance that their child will be able to enrol at the best one. These applications are often paper-based, so it’s time-consuming and difficult to track their progress at each stage. This is a disadvantage for everyone – from parents and children to schools and education departments.
That’s where the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) recognised an opportunity to advance its digital agenda and digitise the entire submission process. It scoped a platform to serve parents, children, schools, and department. To make the project a reality required an experienced and widely capable technology provider. The GDE selected Vodacom for its expertise, knowing the company would be able to enhance the project’s vision on an ongoing basis.
Vodacom and the GDE collaborated on a submissions platform, deploying it on Vodacom's world-class cloud infrastructure. Crucially, Vodacom understood this was a flagship project, reflecting the department's reputation. Vodacom’s people went all out to provide service and support, even working throughout the night to ensure this.
The results have been excellent. Parents can now apply to different schools using scans of documents made with their phones. Going digital means important documents don't just land on an individual’s desk at the department. Instead, they’re shared securely for better outcomes.
Schools and GDE officials can now accurately track multiple submissions correlated to the learner’s ID number, and confidently assign enrolment within appropriate feeder zones (residential area from which a school accepts learners). This is crucial, as provincial education departments also have legal obligations defined by the South African Schools Act, as well as more recent requirements to clearly define these feeder zones.
“At the GDE, we would struggle to know where a learner had applied. We needed to provide statistics as to who has applied to which school, which meant we needed to go to each school to get the statistics. That was the major challenge in terms of running the department,” says Sanelisiwe Kheswa, CIO of the Gauteng Department of Education.
The solution
Such a project required a skilled technology partner with significant experience, wide-ranging access to different resources, and a firm grasp on the underlying technologies that make modern connected digitisation possible. They had to follow the documented scope of the work and have the capability to realise and support a platform of this magnitude, especially as the admissions platform is a provincial flagship project.
The GDE selected Vodacom as its technology partner, and Vodacom Business led the development and implementation of a digitised submission platform. Working closely with the GDE's staff and plans, Vodacom established the platform, hosted on its world-class cloud infrastructure. It also used its clout as a connectivity provider, zero-rating access to the platform so parents didn’t need to use up airtime to make their applications.
The platform, developed through this partnership between the GDE and Vodacom, now allows parents to apply online and scan paperwork with their phones. It also lets administrators at the department easily gather, track and present admission trends and delivery. The platform, launched in 2017, eventually incorporated digital communication channels to modernise the entire admission process for students between Grades 1 and 8. Today, the GDE and Vodacom continue to improve these digital submission services.
"Thanks to the submissions platform, a parent can now apply to any school of their choice from the comfort of their home workspace – in fact from anywhere,” says Kheswa. “We can make better decisions because the documents are easily accessible, verifiable, and transparent to everyone. The ease of access has made it easy for the department to make timeous decisions. We found a great partner in Vodacom. Not just the company’s work ethic, but because it understands the magnitude of this project, and that it’s about us providing proper service delivery.”
Notably, says Kheswa, Vodacom always went the extra mile: “We found that Vodacom assisted us in identifying any security glitches that could have arisen. They also gave us additional customer satisfaction. They've supported us at the times where we've worked until 3am! As a service provider, they were there and are still there to give us the comfort we need before going live with any enhancement.”
Since its launch, Vodacom has worked closely with the GDE to enhance the platform. Parents can apply for schools from wherever they are, and GDE staff can track and plan school admissions through insights from data analytics. Above all, the platform takes the GDE firmly into the digital future, connecting its people, pupils, and parents with the future.
“Digitalisation is part of our strategy, ensuring that we use technology to improve service delivery," says Kheswa. “Vodacom has provided us with the diversity and the ability to handle a solution of this magnitude. This is a provincial flagship project, and we needed a solution provider that would be mindful of the province’s reputation while they were building the solution. We found that in Vodacom.”
