South Africa says about 70% of public schools are “connected”, but the definition often means a single, slow ADSL (copper-based broadband) line or an LTE (4G mobile) router used for administrative tasks, according to TechCentral. When learners cannot reach the network, the school is not digitally enabled.
Geography drives a three-tiered divide. Urban schools report roughly 70% connectivity, while rural schools in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape sit at about 20%. Even in Gauteng, the economic hub, only around 13% to 13.5% of public schools have functional internet access for learners. More than 16,000 public schools remained completely offline as of 2025.
What the numbers really mean
The gap in school connectivity, between a connected school and a connected classroom, shows up in provincial data. In a written reply to Democratic Alliance questions in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature, education MEC Matome Chiloane put the share of classrooms in Gauteng’s 2,221 public schools without internet at 94.6%, The Citizen reported in October 2024. The DA’s education spokesperson, Michael Waters, called it “incomprehensible that so many learners do not have access to it”.
The national programme has moved unevenly. At a parliamentary briefing by the departments of Communications and Digital Technologies and Basic Education, recorded by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, officials reported that 535,633 learners and 59,991 teachers received connectivity between 2022 and 2024, and that only 597 schools had broadband under the first phase of SA Connect, with 209 sites not operating and needing reconnection. The briefing also covered a Telkom and Openserve project that targeted 1,224 schools for five years of free internet, and reported that 406 of 461 public special schools had received equipment. Members of Parliament said the presentation masked conditions on the ground, with some schools forced to fund their own internet. The briefing put the estimated cost of connecting schools at R30.6 billion, against insufficient funding, and the government said it aimed to connect a further 16,000 schools.
Fibre to the classroom
Webafrica says it has joined forces with Vumatel and Project Isizwe to move beyond office-only links. Vumatel‘s Fibre to Schools initiative claims to have delivered free, uncapped 1 Gbit/s fibre to more than 950 primary and high schools, reaching over 655,000 learners and 25,000 teachers. Webafrica says it has helped accelerate that effort, connecting about 400 schools through the partnership and 60 more in the past year.
The company cites Thabo Secondary School in Soweto, which posted a 98.4% matric pass rate in 2025 following its upgrade, and Zola Primary School, where a new GirlCode coding club runs on the fibre connection. An educator at A J Mwelase Secondary in KwaZulu-Natal said: “The Wi-Fi has assisted the school in so many ways. The learning process is now easier as our educators are projecting lessons using the internet.” These examples come from the organisations themselves and have not been independently verified, and a single school’s pass rate cannot be tied to fibre alone.
Webafrica argues that internet service providers, infrastructure owners and non-profits must partner to run fibre directly to classrooms rather than to administrative offices. Its claim is that the commercial capability exists and that scaling the model could reduce the “geographic lottery” that decides a child’s future. TechCentral points to structural barriers in the Eastern Cape’s former Transkei areas, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Northern Cape: a lack of backhaul infrastructure, long distances, and little commercial incentive for internet service providers.
Why it matters to small businesses
A workforce that graduates without regular exposure to digital tools may need additional training, which adds to recruitment costs for the small firms that hire school leavers. The gap also limits the market for local ed-tech providers and small IT service firms that could support schools. More on connectivity is in our Tech & Telco section and the SME & Entrepreneurship section.
