When we first started integrating smart devices as a part of the educational system in South Africa, we had little understanding of the wider impact on children, tweens and teens. As a parent of teens, having seen the awesome impact that tech can make on learning, I am not anti-tech – but I am concerned about it being mindfully and appropriately used as part of the curriculum, as an educational tool.

The Use of Tech in Education

In the South African context, the concept of e-Education revolves around the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to accelerate the achievement of national education goals. The Department of Basic Education’s (DoE) Guidelines on e-Safety in Schools recognise that technology has an imperative role in today’s classrooms, but that the use of that technology must be carefully and strategically implemented in order to be of highest value to both teachers and learners. It highlights potential issues of concern, including online harassment and cyberbullying, inappropriate or illegal online behaviours, physical danger and sexual abuse, exposure to unsuitable materials, plagiarism and copyright infringement, and obsessive use of the Internet

Recognising that the use of technology will increase exponentially in all our lives, the responsibility of the school is seen as not only incorporating technology as a valuable learning tool, but also equipping learners to be discerning, responsible and ethical participants in the information age. The Guidelines encourage schools, through a Safe School Committee, to develop their own Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), to manage devices brought to and used at school. The AUP should be linked to, and the penalties defined by, the Code of Conduct that must be adopted by every public school. Essentially a school’s AUP should form part of it’s safeguarding umbrella.

The Concept of Safeguarding

“Safeguarding” is defined as the measures to protect the health, well-being, and human rights of individuals, which allow people—especially children, young people and vulnerable adults—to live free from abuse, harm and neglect. It is safe to say that it is probably one of the biggest challenges facing schools today.

South Africa has arguably one of the best Constitutions in the world and our re-active safeguarding legislation is quite strong. Proactively however, our legislation in this area is sorely lacking. The primary legislation in South Africa that covers the duty of schools to safeguard learners is the South African Schools Act, 1996 (Act 84 of 1996) which refers to the responsibilities of schools, teachers, and other staff members in ensuring the well-being and protection of learners. It is supplemented by the Employment of Educators Act, 76 of 1998 which sets out the code of conduct for educators, emphasising their ethical and professional responsibilities, including the duty to safeguard learners. 

By contrast, as a world leader in the concept of safeguarding, the UK’s Online Safety Act emphasises a comprehensive approach to online safety in education, focusing on risk assessment, curriculum development, reporting mechanisms, and collaborative efforts with parents. These measures aim to create a safer digital environment for students, fostering a culture of awareness and resilience against online harms. It recognises that ensuring online safety in education is a multifaceted challenge that requires the collaboration of educators, parents, and policymakers.

Notwithstanding the lack of specific legislation dealing with safeguarding, under South African common law, schools have a duty of care and legal responsibility to safeguard children for whom they act in loco parentis. Schools have a dual responsibility when it comes to online safety: to ensure the school’s online procedures keep children and young people safe, and to teach them about online safety, in and outside of school.

The Role of Schools in Digital Safeguarding

Digital safeguarding in schools is the practice of protecting students from online harm whilst at school. This includes cyberstalking, discrimination and abuse, disinformation, hacking, harmful online challenges, hoaxes, impersonation, misinformation, online bullying, and online harassment. Meeting this responsibility involves:

• Teaching online safety skills

Schools are required to teach learners about the risks of the online world, how to make informed choices and how to protect themselves and seek assistance where needed. One of the real challenges is that competing curriculum pressures and priorities means that online safety does not always receive sufficient focus, despite school leaders recognising its importance and the value of their role.

• Filtering and monitoring learner’s online activity

Schools are required to ensure that online access is appropriately filtered, monitored and managed via the school’s firewall and mobile device management system (MDMS).

• Reporting of incidents

Schools are required to set up protocols whereby learners can report threats, bullying, harassment, and more through their school’s reporting process. Schools also need a process to report incidents to parents of caregivers concerned.

• Managing incidents

Schools are required to set up protocols for facilitating and managing online safety issues. Whilst schools cannot be held responsible for online activity that happens outside of school hours on devices that are not school sanctioned, the reality is that not all children have a parent or carer with the time or ability to support their safety online.

• Making digital safeguarding a priority

Including safeguarding topics, issues and concerns in staff meetings, newsletters, communications and on the school’s website are highly recommended. Given how online issues permeate the boundary between school and home, it is critical that schools and parents combine in a united front against online risks. Schools have an important role to play in empowering parents on the use of parental filtering and monitoring tools, and how to spot and respond to harmful behaviour on online platforms.

• Monitoring staff

Schools need to regularly train, supervise and monitor staff to ensure they understand their roles and responsibilities.

• Listening to learners, parents and caregivers

Listening to learners and their families when they talk about their experiences online, including the use of tech as part of the curriculum, is a vital part of the digital safeguarding approach.

The iPad in Education Dilemma

As the adoption of iPads (and indeed tablets generally) as the technology device of choice in schools has risen in the last decade, many have relied on a bring your own device (BYOD) model, requiring parents to purchase them, rather than investing in the technology as a school asset.

Whilst control of the use of iPads by learners during the school day can be managed through the school’s firewall and mobile device management system (MDMS), the management of these devices after school often becomes the burden of parents, with often little to no guidance from the school. This burden is exacerbated by the fact that –

1. Many parents are not willing to give access to their children (from as young as Grade 4), to “their own” smart, internet-connected device, as it is earlier than they may have wished or planned too;
2. This view is increasingly supported by the research and evidence on which the global move towards delaying smartphones until high school is founded;
3. Management of time spent, iMessage groups joined, apps and games downloaded, and content accessed becomes the parents’ burden after school hours;
4. Parents are unprepared and ill-equipped to install the necessary filters and limits to manage screen time;
5. Android families are unable to access Apple parental controls; and
6. Apple’s operating system, which prioritises data privacy and security, means that the functionality of third-party parental controls is limited.

At Be in Touch, we promote the concept of using the school’s MDMS to lock down these devices as “electronic textbooks”, both during and after school. From our perspective, these are the options open to schools which have integrated tech for educational purposes, in order to best support their digital safeguarding duty of care:

1. School provides the device to be used only at school under the supervision of teachers, managed by the school firewall and MDMS;
2. School requires parents to provide the device, to be used only at school under the supervision of teachers, managed by the school firewall and MDMS, and the device is kept at school;
3. School requires parents to provide the device, to be used at school under the supervision of teachers, managed by the school firewall and MDMS, and the device is taken home. The device is treated as an “electronic textbook” only, and the school’s MDMS (such as Meraki or JAMF) is set to it’s full management setting applicable 24/7, ensuring that the only content and apps that learners can access after-hours, are the school-approved educational apps. This setting should also ensure that virtual private networks (VPN’s) cannot be downloaded to circumvent the school MDMS.

The burden placed on individual teachers to deal with and manage digital drama resulting from the use or misuse of devices, are too onerous and take up valuable education time.  Expecting learners to self-regulate their online activities is a pipedream, given that the executive functioning skills needed to do so, are only fully developed in the prefrontal cortex round about age 25. The South African legislative framework needs to catch up to this reality, but in the meantime, we believe that schools can step into the gap with clear policies around the use and management of technology and devices as educational tools only.