Digital skills and education
We believe everyone has the right to a quality education.
Through our Connected Learning programmes, we’re working in partnership to enable some of the most vulnerable communities living in the areas we operate to access quality learning, and a brighter future.
Even before the COVID-19 crisis, an estimated 258 million children around the world were not in school.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to adapt teaching to the new realities of increasingly digital societies.
Lack of access to devices and poor connectivity hindered home learning. Across our markets, we have responded by providing devices and connectivity to students and families, as well as growing our existing education platforms across Europe and Africa.
We recognise technology has an important role to play in overcoming these barriers.
1.6 billion learners
learners impacted by the pandemic in over 190 countries
The COVID-19 crisis has made things worse, impacting nearly 1.6 billion learners in over 190 countries
1.5 million students
students have benefited from our Connected Education Programme to date
We expanded Connected Education which was launched in January 2020 by our social enterprise Vodafone Business Ventures to provide access to connectivity, devices and classroom collaboration software for students and teachers across the world.
Our progress
Vodafone has built a number of digital education solutions across Europe and Africa.
We expanded Connected Education, which was launched in January 2020, by our social enterprise Vodafone Business Ventures to provide access to connectivity, devices and classroom collaboration software for students and teachers across the world.
To date, over 1.5 million students in 4,500 educational institutions across 13 countries have benefited from this digital learning solution.
In South Africa, the Vodacom e-School solution allows learners to access curriculum-aligned content and educators to access learning materials on their smartphone with no data charges.
We currently have over 1.3 million users on the platform.
Connected Education video
In the UK, we launched Schools.Connected to help improve connectivity for learners from low income families.
The programme provided an initial 250,000 SIMs with a 30GB data allowance valid for 90 days. All SIMs were ordered by 6,970 primary and secondary schools in just four working days, so we doubled the number of SIMs and distributed 500,000.
We estimate that each SIM used potentially prevented a student missing 60 days of schooling.
Through our Vodafone Foundation we are improving education
In 2021, we announced an investment of €20 million by Vodafone Foundation to expand digital skills and education programmes across Europe, aiming to reach over 16 million learners by 2025.
One example is Vodafone Foundation Germany’s ‘Coding for Tomorrow’ which teaches students and their teachers about how to use digital technologies in an independent, critical and creative way. To date, the programme has reached 1.2 million students and teachers.
Vodafone Foundation also continues to scale Instant Network Schools, its partnership with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (‘UNHCR’), which provides education for refugee students and communities in the DRC, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. Since 2013, this partnership has worked with communities and education ministries to transform classrooms into multimedia learning hubs, complete with internet connectivity, sustainable solar power, classroom kits including tablets, laptops, projectors and speakers, localised digital content, and teacher training. In 2023, 84 Instant network Schools were deployed, benefiting 247,000 students. By 2025, Vodafone Foundation aims to deploy 300 Instant Network Schools to support.
Our strategy in action
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Contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
We aim to build a inclusive and sustainable digital society. Through our connectivity and digital innovations (SDG 9) and through our partnerships (SDG 17) we can accelerate and scale delivery across multiple SDGs.
