About Kloof Senior Primary School
Kloof Senior Primary School is a co-educational public school in the heart of Kloof, a suburb of greater Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal. The school offers quality tuition from Grade 4 to Grade 7. They run a variety of academic, cultural and sporting programs and are made up of 45 staff members and 435 learners.
Industry
Schools are learning environments with numerous administrative functions. Internet connectivity is an essential resource for both learning and necessary admin tasks. Since schools embody a host of young learners they are responsible for, security is imperative. Public schools also need to be conscious of spend and should employ high quality cost-effective solutions.
The Business Challenge
Before getting Vox Fibre to the Business, Bernice Love, Principal of Kloof Senior Primary says the school always had connection issues. “Our connection was never stable and staff members often complained about the Internet outages,” she says.
Internet connectivity is a necessary resource in any learning environment. Bernice Love explains how extended downtime in the classroom as well as in the administrative departments of the school started becoming a problem.
Then there was the issue of security. “When it comes to technology, some of our learners are smarter than us. They know our tech vulnerabilities and how to get onto our systems,” says Principal Love. The learners are also at risk when it comes to cyber security on the school premises. “You’ll always get a few learners who will test the boundaries and google inappropriate words. This has been done a few times,” says Love.
Kloof Senior Primary knew they needed to take action and protect their staff and learners from cyber security vulnerabilities and risks.
The Business Solution
Kloof Senior Primary School got 3 different quotes for Fibre to the Business. They settled on the one that came highly recommended, Vox. “A person from our area here in Kloof told us Vox had great service, they were locally based and had a quick turnaround time, so we went with their recommendation,” says Love.
“Ever since we’ve gotten fibre from Vox we’ve never been down for more than an hour except for one time when rats got hold of cabling in the area and everyone was down for the day,” she adds.
Principal Love says that she hardly gets any more complaints from her staff about Internet outages and adds that the minimal complaints she has received of late have had to do with internal issues and not Vox.
Having a stable Internet connection has allowed the school to become more efficient as well. “When it comes to communication, we’re almost paperless. Having fibre has helped us better communicate with our community of learners and parents,” says Love.
To keep the local network safe, and the school information and resources private and secure, Kloof Senior Primary School, employed a managed firewall service from Vox. “Having a firewall has helped us secure our network. We haven’t had any issues with learners searching for inappropriate words in the last three years. They may search, but they won’t find what they’re looking for,” says Love.
Overall experience with Vox
“The service we’ve received from Vox has been prompt. Any issues we’ve had has been quickly resolved. Our account manager, Thobelani, is extremely efficient and we can count on him when we need action,” says Principal Love.
Kloof Senior Primary School has added an LTE failover connection, a switchboard and are currently installing uncapped voice from Vox. “VoIP calls will save us money and we’re always looking for cost effective solutions for our school,” says Love.