en.Wedoany.com Reported - UK's Airtel Africa recently announced that, through its Airtel Africa Foundation and in partnership with UNICEF, it will provide free internet access to 5,000 schools across its African operational markets by 2027. The initiative has already connected 3,296 schools, benefiting over 2 million students and approximately 40,000 teachers. The next phase will continue to expand connectivity to schools with insufficient network coverage.
The project covers 13 countries, including Chad, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. UK's Airtel Africa will collaborate with education ministries in each country to connect schools to existing communication networks and provide zero-rated access to digital teaching platforms.
In Zambia, 300 schools have already been connected under this initiative. During a visit to St. Monica's Girls' School in Lusaka, Sunil Taldar, CEO of UK's Airtel Africa, stated that connected schools can access digital curriculum resources developed by UNICEF and national education ministries via the operator's network. In addition to internet access, the project includes teacher training to enable schools to integrate the internet and digital platforms into daily teaching.
Unlike standard mobile communication services for individual users, connecting schools requires incorporating specific school locations into the operator's network coverage and service assurance scope, while continuously providing available bandwidth. For schools in remote areas or those with insufficient existing fixed network coverage, internet access conditions are often constrained by transmission lines, wireless coverage, and on-site equipment. UK's Airtel Africa has not yet disclosed whether new schools will be connected via fiber, fixed wireless access, or mobile networks, nor has it released the distribution of schools by country or the construction timeline.
The initiative also provides zero-rated access to 64 digital learning platforms, enabling over 11 million users to access educational content without incurring data charges. While free platform access does not replace the construction of school communication facilities, it can reduce the ongoing cost of using online courses once schools are connected, preventing underutilization due to high data fees after network deployment.
UK's Airtel Africa and UNICEF launched this five-year partnership in 2021, with a total investment of $57 million, covering school connectivity, access to digital teaching platforms, and related support services. The project initially set its scope to include 13 African countries. By raising the target to 5,000 schools, it implies that approximately 1,700 schools still need to be connected by 2027.
Currently, the project has moved from early pilot phases to cross-border batch connectivity. However, public materials have not disclosed specific construction data such as new base stations, fiber optic lines, on-campus routing equipment, or network capacity. Therefore, the confirmed milestone for this project is the continued expansion of internet access to schools, and it cannot be further described as uniformly deploying a specific type of communication network or having already completed connections for 5,000 schools.
