Public schools do not need vetting from Telkom or anyone else, says ICT lawyer Lisa Thornton, commenting on the utility`s stated procedures for allowing schools to get their 50% Internet access discount.
Efforts to allow public schools to get their discount, as mandated by the changes to the Telecommunications Act in terms of communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri`s liberalisation announcement, remain mired in red tape almost two months after it was to have come into effect. To date, there is no known instance of any school receiving the discount.
In reply to a query by ITWeb on how public schools could obtain their discount, Telkom says: "Such parties who are Telkom customers and who use their Telkom telephone service to make calls to the Internet will receive a 50% discount on their Internet calls. Should the customer also rent a basic (analogue) Telkom Internet service, the customer will also receive 50% discount on the rental charge of this service."
Telkom says it held a meeting with the communications and education departments in September when it presented a request form to be used by schools.
"Telkom is willing and able to grant the credits and will do so provided that qualifying parties fill in the necessary request form and provide Telkom with their EMIS [Education Management Information System - in essence a school`s identity number] number. Telkom will verify the EMIS number with the Department of Education. Telkom will grant the discounts from the date of receipt of verification of the EMIS number."
Elaborating on her comment that schools do not need vetting, Thornton says all public schools have the right to the discount.
"Telkom has chosen to make procedural rules for the implementation of the 50% discount, which is not necessarily bad; what is bad is that it is incumbent upon Telkom to advertise those procedures and make sure those procedures do not jeopardise the schools` rights," she says.
Thornton believes Telkom must apply the discount retrospectively even if it takes the company a long time to determine whether a school is registered as a public school.
"If someone (Telkom or an ISP) is not giving a 50% discount, the school could go to ICASA [Independent Communications Authority of SA] and complain," she says.
Related story:
Schools not getting their half-price Internet
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