Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 Education
Licences for the paid editions, setup, administration and migration, with accounts on the school's own domain for every learner and staff member.
Edtech and IT for schools, colleges and universities
Arke Technologies is a Johannesburg edtech and IT partner for independent and public schools, universities, TVET colleges and training providers across South Africa. We set up Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 Education, manage learner devices and school networks, supply interactive displays through Server Hub and protect learner data under POPIA.
What is edtech? A plain definition for schools
Edtech, short for educational technology and sometimes written edutech, is the hardware, software and services that support teaching, learning and the running of an institution. That is the edtech definition; its meaning in a school is practical. If it helps a teacher teach, a learner learn or a bursar close the month, it counts.
Like fintech, which applies technology to financial services, edtech is a sector rather than a product: the edtech industry spans learning apps and content, devices and displays, networks, platforms and support. The term is used the same way in France or California as in Johannesburg; what changes is the operating reality. In South Africa that means load-shedding, the cost of mobile data at home, shared devices and learner records that are children's personal information under POPIA.
Examples of edtech fall into four groups:
- Edtech hardware: learner devices, interactive displays, networks and Wi-Fi.
- Edtech software: learning management systems, classroom management software and school management software.
- Edtech platforms: Google Workspace for Education and Microsoft 365 Education, which carry identity, email, storage and classes.
- Edtech services: the setup, security, support and training that make the rest work at 07:30 on a Monday.
K12 schools (Grade R to Grade 12) need tight content filtering, shared devices and simple sign-in; edtech in higher education needs identity at scale, research computing and self-service support (see IT for universities and TVET colleges). The benefits of edtech show up as marking returned sooner and lessons available online at home. Good edtech bridges the gap between what a teacher plans and what the network, device and timetable allow.
Smart classroom technology: what a digital classroom needs
What is smart classroom technology? It is the set of connected tools a teacher uses in the room: an interactive classroom whiteboard to teach from, devices for learners, a network that carries both, and software that ties lessons, work and marks together. A digital classroom extends the same idea beyond the room, so learning continues at home. The digital classroom board price depends on size, the built-in computer, mounting and installation, not only the screen; see interactive whiteboard sizing and prices.
Digital tools for classroom teaching include shared documents, quizzes, recorded lessons and gamification, which turns practice into points and levels; used badly, it rewards speed over understanding. Classroom management software lets a teacher see learner screens, push a link and lock devices during a test. Assignments and class streams come free with the education editions of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, but live screen monitoring and device locking generally need a paid edition, an add-on or a separate tool, so check before assuming free classroom management software will do the job. Learning management systems replace paper mark books; our learning management systems guide compares the options.
Green computing in schools: less power, longer device life, less e-waste
What is green computing in schools? It is running school IT with less energy and less waste: power settings that put devices and displays to sleep, equipment sized to the need, repair before replacement, and responsible disposal at the end of a device's life. For a South African school it is as much about the electricity bill and load-shedding as about the environment.
The benefits of green computing in schools:
- Lower running costs. Sleep and shut-down policies are pushed centrally from the Google Admin console or Microsoft Intune, rather than relying on the last person out.
- Longer lessons through load-shedding. Low-power devices draw less from the same battery, so battery-backed network cabinets and backup power through Fibre Boyz keep a class working through more of an outage.
- Longer device life. Repair first, reassign devices between grades, and consider certified refurbished units from Server Hub, which carry a 12-month local warranty.
- Less hardware on site. Moving file storage to Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 retires a server that runs all night.
- Responsible disposal. Data wiped and devices recycled at end of life, with a record of what was destroyed for the asset register.
Edtech companies in South Africa: where Arke fits
Edtech companies in South Africa fall broadly into three camps: product companies that build learning apps and content, suppliers of hardware and licences, and service companies that make it all run in a particular school. Arke Technologies is in the third camp: an IT company, not a publisher of learning content, recommending edtech products and edtech solutions that fit the school's platform, network and budget.
The difference is one contract. We design the platform, supply hardware through our trading division Server Hub, connect the school through our connectivity division Fibre Boyz, and support the result under one service-level agreement, with one number to call.
Arke Technologies (Pty) Ltd serves institutions across South Africa, including Cape Town and Pretoria, from its head office in Greenstone Hill, Johannesburg. Remote support covers the country, and on-site work follows the on-site policy written into your SLA. Education sits beside the public sector and nonprofits and NGOs among the industries we serve.
What we do for schools, colleges and universities
Learner devices and Chromebooks
Chromebook and Windows device management through Chrome Education management and Microsoft Intune.
Interactive displays
Supplied through Server Hub, then installed, configured and supported by our team.
School networks and Wi-Fi
Structured cabling, LAN and Wi-Fi design, firewalls, content filtering, and business fibre and LTE.
Cybersecurity, POPIA and online safety
Platform hardening, backups, access controls and the records your information officer needs.
School management and learning systems
Learning-management-system implementation and integration (for example Moodle, Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams for Education), and SA-SAMS data exports and integration with school administration systems. See our SA-SAMS guide.
Finance office
Support for Sage 50, Sage Business Cloud and Pastel Partner in the bursar's office and, for colleges that teach bookkeeping, Sage 50c or Pastel Partner educational software in the computer lab.
Staff training
Practical sessions built around how your teachers and office staff actually work, not feature tours: in the staff room, as recorded webinars, and in a staff forum or wiki the school owns.
Governance, procurement and continuity
School governing bodies, university councils and TVET college councils answer for technology spend and risk. This is what they receive from us:
- An SLA set to your needs: scope, exclusions, on-site policy, price per seat and term, with incidents prioritised P1 (critical outage) to P4 (low-impact request) and response and resolution targets matched to the impact of downtime and agreed with you.
- A monthly service review and report covering tickets, response times, device and security status and licence use, with a named service lead, escalation paths and change control. Where a council wants live figures, we build a reporting dashboard on its own data.
- Procurement documents: Level 1 B-BBEE contributor, giving 135% procurement recognition (sworn affidavit available on request); company documents, a bank confirmation letter, our CSD supplier number and SARS tax compliance status on request; SBD forms when a bid requires them. See our company facts for procurement teams.
- How to buy: a proposal, then an SLA for services, a purchase order for hardware, or a response to your tender. Server Hub quotes are itemised in rand with VAT included, each line backed by a dated source.
- Continuity: you own your data, admin credentials and documentation, kept in a wiki or library you control. Growth from one campus to several stays under one contract and one accountable team; if you leave, we hand over the consoles, credentials and documentation. On request we maintain a multi-year ICT masterplan (for example to 2030) that the governing body approves and reviews each year.
Compliance: POPIA, King IV and responsible AI
Learner records, marks, medical notes and parent or guardian contact details are personal information, and a learner's details are a child's personal information under POPIA. We configure platforms for data minimisation, encryption in transit and at rest, access controls and audit logging, with controls that cover insiders as well as outsiders.
For boards and councils we work to King IV Principle 12, which makes technology and information governance a board responsibility. Where the buyer is a national or provincial department or a public entity, we work to PFMA procurement and reporting disciplines; see supplier compliance for the public sector. We work to controls aligned with ISO/IEC 27001 and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (alignment, not certification), and keep the audit-ready records your information officer needs for a POPIA or PAIA request.
Edtech AI needs the same discipline. Under our Emergent Intelligence framework for responsible artificial intelligence, AI recommends and people decide, every AI action is logged, and client data never trains a model without explicit consent. See AI governance.
Building an edtech platform? A note for founders and investors
Some readers are building edtech rather than buying it: founders leaving an incubator, edtech startups funded by grants or venture capital (VC), and investors doing technical due diligence. Whether edtech is profitable, and what valuation multiples the sector commands, belong in your investment case; blogs and research papers show what worked in a pilot, not whether a product survives a full school timetable.
What we answer is the engineering, as a SaaS product development team:
- Children's data. Learner records are a child's personal information under POPIA, so consent, data minimisation and access logging are designed in from the first release.
- Patchy connectivity. Offline-first apps capture data with no signal and sync when it returns; the same pattern suits learners with little data at home.
- The school's existing systems. Sign-in through Google Workspace for Education or Microsoft 365, classes from Google Classroom or Microsoft Teams for Education, and learner data from SA-SAMS exports, so no school re-keys what it already holds.
- Scale. Tenant isolation, logging and cost controls that hold from one school to many.
For edtech startups in Africa, that integration work is the part of the ecosystem a pilot rarely tests, and the part of the landscape that decides whether a second school signs.