# Key Elements for Cybersafety Education of Primary School Learners in South Africa

Lynn Futcher, Kerry-Lynn Thomson, Lean Kucherera, Noluxolo Gcaza

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Lynn Futcher, Kerry-Lynn Thomson, Lean Kucherera, Noluxolo Gcaza. Key Elements for Cybersafety Education of Primary School Learners in South Africa. 17th International Symposium on Human Aspects of Information Security and Assurance (HAISA), Jul 2023, Kent, United Kingdom. pp.116-128, 10.1007/978-3-031-38530-8_10. hal-05462106

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# Key Elements for Cybersafety Education of Primary School Learners in South Africa

Lynn Futcher ID, Kerry-Lynn Thomson✉️ ID, Lean Kucherera ID, and Noluxolo Gcaza ID

Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

{Lynn.futcher,kerry-lynn.thomson,s213229706,noluxolo.gcaza}@mandela.ac.za

**Abstract.** School learners are prone to falling victim to a range of cyberattacks. Common cyberthreats associated with school learners include cyberbullying, sexing/'sextortion', engaging with strangers, accessing inappropriate content and privacy breaches. As the cybersafety of school learners is often compromised, there is a need to protect them from the threats associated with ICT. However, protecting children from cyberthreats is complicated because access to cyberspace is no longer confined to the home computer, but has extended to mobile phones, which are even more pervasive. Therefore, it is essential for school learners to be educated on how to protect themselves and their information in cyberspace through cybersafety initiatives. This paper proposes Key Elements to be considered when addressing cybersafety education, particularly for primary school learners in South Africa. This paper contributes to the body of knowledge by exploring cybersafety education in the context of South Africa, emphasizing the need for targeted cyber-safety education. Primarily, the Key Elements proposed in this paper provide a comprehensive, contextual and practical foundation for cybersafety education in schools.

**Keywords:** Cybersafety education · cyberthreats · cyberattacks · primary school learners

## 1 Introduction

According to the Global Cybersecurity Forum's 'Why Children Are Unsafe in Cyberspace' report, as many as 93% of children aged 8 years to 17 years are online. 81% of children are online daily, with almost 45% spending more than three hours online per day. The report further highlights that 72% of children have experienced at least one cyberthreat while online [1].

A number of developed countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States of America (USA) and the United Kingdom (UK) have included cybersafety education in their school curricula [2–4]. Similarly, the rapid growth of the Internet around the world has encouraged some countries in Africa to start implementing cyber-safety education in schools, including Mauritius, Tunisia, Kenya, Ghana, Mozambique,
Cameroon, Egypt and Rwanda. However, countries like Uganda, Sudan, Morocco and South Africa are still facing challenges in this regard [5].

Currently, South Africa has no formalised curriculum in place to educate school learners about cybersafety, and there is limited involvement from the government to implement cybersafety education. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) has only produced guidelines to assist schools in implementing cybersafety education and is, arguably, not doing enough for cybersafety [6]. However, researchers from various higher education institutions, such as the Nelson Mandela University, the University of Johannesburg and the University of South Africa (UNISA) are attempting to assist in the implementation of cybersafety initiatives. Further, when addressing cybersafety education for school learners, the context must be considered.

Many cybersafety initiatives do not distinguish between primary school and high school learners. While primary school and high school learners may be exposed to similar cyberthreats, it could be argued that primary school learners are more susceptible, for example, to cyberbullying, exposure to inappropriate content, and accidental sharing of personal information [7, 8]. They may also be less aware of online safety practices and may have less mature judgement when it comes to online interactions.

High school learners may be more vulnerable to phishing scams, hacking attempts, and online predators seeking personal information or financial gain. They may also be more active on social media platforms where cyberbullying and other forms of harassment can occur [8]. Therefore, it is vital that aspects, such as the age and maturity of learners and the most common types of cyberthreats for age groups are considered in cybersafety educational material.

Therefore, this paper proposes various Key Elements to be considered when addressing cybersafety education, particularly for primary school learners in South Africa. The aim of the proposed Key Elements is to provide a comprehensive, contextual and practical foundation for cybersafety education in schools.

Section 2 presents the research methodology related to this study, while Sect. 3 highlights some of the challenges in addressing cybersafety education in South Africa. Section 4 follows by proposing Key Elements to be considered when addressing cybersafety education, before concluding in Sect. 5.

## 2 Research Methodology

In order to identify Key Elements of cybersafety for primary school learners, a literature review was conducted. This involved reviewing a variety of relevant articles, books, journals, and other sources. The objective of the literature review was to examine cybersafety initiatives both globally and in South Africa to provide a clear overview of current cybersafety efforts. A search was conducted from a wide variety of sources, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Science Direct, Springer, Research Gate and Google Scholar.

Related publications were gathered to collect data for further analysis. This was done using a content analysis. According to Krippendorff [9], a content analysis is a research method for making replicable and valid inferences from data to their context, with the purpose of providing knowledge, new insights, a representation of facts and
a practical guide to action. It is an empirical method in which data, text, images and expressions are analysed in the context of their use [9]. A content analysis can either be qualitative or quantitative. In quantitative content analysis, text data is grouped into certain categories and described as statistics, whereas in qualitative content analysis, text data is analysed to bring up arguments, draw conclusions or highlight any findings [9]. This study conducted a qualitative content analysis to investigate current cybersafety initiatives globally and in South Africa.

When completing a content analysis, a researcher starts with questions in mind and reads the content of previous studies in order to ascertain whether the findings within them are applicable to the specific area of the research study. The thematic questions were chosen from the following studies: Guidelines to Establish an e-Safety Awareness in South Africa [10] and a Cybersecurity Awareness and Education Framework for South Africa [11]. These studies addressed the most pertinent questions for this research. The thematic questions identified are as follows:

* What are the goals of the initiatives?

* Who are the overseers of the initiatives?

* Who are the role players?

* What are the key constraints?

* Who is the target audience?

* What is the context of the initiatives?

* What are the resources being used?

* What are the topics covered?

* What are the delivery methods?

To conduct the content analysis, the search term 'cybersafety education' was initially used as the key search term and studies from 2007 to 2022 were included. Further screening of the initial articles was conducted by focusing on cybersafety education for primary school learners and 31 articles were selected to investigate cybersafety education globally (17 articles) and in South Africa (14 articles).

## 3 Challenges Relating to Cybersafety Education in South Africa

While a few relevant cybersafety awareness and education initiatives have been run in South Africa, there is no formalised cybersafety education curriculum in place [12]. The South African government has made minimum effort to address the issue of cybersafety education and the national cybersecurity strategy has not been clear on how to implement cybersafety awareness and education. However, a few universities in South Africa have developed online cybersafety initiatives and learning materials [12]. From an analysis of these initiatives, it is evident that frameworks, games, posters, books, and information sharing sessions have been suggested as solutions to try and address cybersafety education in South Africa. However, this study has identified the following as challenges that South Africa still needs to address:

* A: South Africa does not have any formal cybersafety education in place and cybersecurity is not currently incorporated into the South African school curricula [12, 13].
* **B:** Most cybersafety material is accessed online and this has been a challenge to most schools in South African as finances are needed to address Internet infrastructure and delivery methods. Many schools are under-resourced when it comes to ICT infrastructure [14].

* **C:** South Africa has 11 official languages, which leads to challenges related to language barriers for learners and geographical location. Many children struggle to find the material online due to the language barrier as much of this material is only available in English [5, 13, 15].

* **D:** Some of the initiatives suggested in South Africa do not provide clarity on the role players in cybersafety. The Department of Basic Education [6] is unclear with regards to their contribution as role players in this regard. Governing bodies and school principals were also highlighted as being unclear in their position as key role players.

* **E:** Several South African initiatives [13, 16, 17, 18] have shown a clear indication that they are aimed at primary school learners and/or high school learners. However, it is important to focus on these groupings separately, as they are targeted with different cybersafety threats and the best delivery methods also vary, mainly according to the difference in the ages of the children involved.

* **F:** The Department of Basic Education [6] in South Africa developed guidelines to implement cybersafety education, but did not specify the target audience for the suggested topics.

Having identified these as challenges in South Africa, this paper proposes Key Elements to be considered in delivering cybersafety initiatives to primary school learners in South Africa as discussed in the next section.

# 4 Key Elements in Addressing Cybersafety Education in South Africa

This section highlights the Key Elements proposed to overcome the challenges that have been identified in addressing the cybersafety education of primary school learners in South Africa. The structure of these elements is in accordance with the thematic questions highlighted in Sect. 2.

## 4.1 Goals of Cybersafety Education in South Africa

It is important that in every cybersafety initiative a goal must be set in order to provide clear objectives and subsequently measure the effectiveness of the initiative. Therefore, specific goals must be clear and in place from the outset.

Many researchers in South Africa have set specific goals in their cybersafety initiatives. Some of these goals include: the delivery of cybersafety awareness throughout South Africa [19], empowering teachers to educate learners on cybersafety education [5], proposing frameworks that can assist in the design of offline cybersafety games [21], proposing frameworks to contribute towards the development of an e-safety culture [18], using open resources in a cybersafety curriculum and improving the cybersafety maturity of South African schools [13]. The common goal in these initiatives is to protect
children. These initiatives may directly educate learners, or indirectly through educating the adults involved in their lives, for example, parents, guardians and teachers, for them to impart their knowledge to the learners.

## 4.2 Overseers of Cybersafety Initiatives in South Africa

According to the National Cybersecurity Policy Framework (NCPF) of South Africa [22], there is a need to 'create an enabling environment for cybersecurity training, education, research and development and skills development programmes in South Africa'. However, the Framework is unclear as to who the overseers of this 'enabling environment' should be. Further, the Framework does not mention the need for cybersafety in schools. Therefore, there is limited support from the South African government regarding cybersafety education. At present, researchers at various universities in South Africa have been involved with designing and implementing cybersafety educational material.

Having more than one agency involved in an initiative can be beneficial as it not only combines experience and knowledge from more than one area, but it also assists in promoting accountability, as one partner will be held accountable for their actions by the others involved. With many initiatives in Africa, including South Africa, being led by single agencies, these benefits are not being fully realised.

The South African government is considered to be one of the main overseers to ensure that school learners are being educated about cybersafety and cyber use. According to Farrell [3] it is the government who should make sure that school learners are protected against all possible cyber dangers, threats and exploitation. However, researchers have been found to have undertaken the majority of the groundwork in implementing cybersafety initiatives in South Africa. These initiatives were based on extensive research studies into various aspects of cyberthreats, cybersafety and cyber awareness amongst children. The South African government should take on the role of overseer for cybersafety education, thereby addressing challenges A and F.

## 4.3 Cybersafety Education Role Players in South Africa

The role players involved in cybersafety initiatives should include the overseers mentioned in Sect. 4.2, together with various role players in schools, including governing bodies, private sector, principals, teachers, parents and learners. These role players all have different, but interconnected roles to play in cybersafety education as discussed in the various initiatives. Generally, role players should assume the following roles:

* **Governing bodies:** fundamentally the government should establish standards under a national curriculum and form enabling partnerships with private sectors in implementing cybersafety education. According to Conklin et al. [20] the role of government goes beyond a mere recognition of the importance of cybersafety education to allocating the resources necessary to establish the education system.

* **Private Sector:** The role of the private sector together with the government is to provide funding to implement cybersafety initiatives. Without funding support from private sector, government initiatives tend to fail [4].
* **Principals:** School governing bodies and principals are responsible for the implementation of school policies and rules. In addition, they provide the environment in which cybersafety education and the school curriculum are implemented [13, 18]

* **Teachers and parents:** The teachers and the parents' roles should be able to assist learners in acquiring the skill and knowledge on how to operate in cyberspace [4].

The South African government, in this case the DBE, is responsible for the school curriculum and is also responsible for cybersafety education. Section 4.4. Explores some of the constraints that emanate from the government from fulfilling its role. Parents and teachers in South Africa often lack the requisite knowledge [13, 23] and need to first acquire the relevant skills and knowledge regarding cybersafety before being able to support their learners. By clearly defining the South African role players in these cybersafety initiatives, challenge D can be addressed.

## 4.4 Constraints of Cybersafety Initiatives in South Africa

The contextual constraints of cybersafety initiatives identified in South Africa include age-appropriateness, geographical location of schools and language barriers of learners. Further constraints include finances, infrastructure and teacher/parent cybersafety knowledge.

It is important that any cybersafety initiative is age-appropriate in order to ensure that the learners not only understand the concepts being taught, but also that these concepts are meaningful and have a relatable context to their life experiences. In the case of primary school learners, cyberthreats applicable to their particular age group should be included using age-appropriate delivery methods. Geographical location holds a major key to the infrastructure and funding that is available [21], and to a large extent the existing knowledge that teachers/parents have [23]. Rural areas have been found to have poor connectivity and available bandwidth and are typically government schools with fewer resources, less collaboration with the private sector, and very limited cyber-based knowledge amongst older generations.

Primary school teachers should not be implementing cybersafety initiatives on their own. To be successful, cybersafety initiatives must be accompanied by appropriate training and supporting guidelines to help schools and teachers on how to deliver cybersafety education to primary school learners. Also, learners should be provided with supporting material, in their home language, that is both multi-dimensional and age-appropriate, in order to assist in their understanding of cybersafety education [13].

Most initiatives [5, 6, 12, 16–19, 24, 27–29] have been implemented in English, yet South Africa has 11 official languages, and only two of the initiatives [21, 26] have been translated. Moreover, the issue of infrastructure has been of concern in South Africa, mainly due to financial constraints. To address this challenge, this paper promotes that when implementing cybersafety education, it is important to consider the context in the initial planning stages. Translated initiatives and printed material must be considered where relevant when implementing cybersafety education in South Africa. Through taking these constraints and context into consideration for South African cybersafety initiatives, challenges B and C would be addressed.
## 4.5 Target Audience of Cybersafety Initiatives in South Africa

It is important that every cybersafety initiative focuses on specific groupings of the society. These groupings may include school learners, teachers and parents.

Many developed countries have done well in grouping their target audiences. However, the initiative in Mozambique [25] appears to have combined both primary and high school learners, despite them having different experiences and therefore being affected differently. Several South African initiatives [5, 16, 19, 24, 26] have shown a clear indication that they are aimed at primary school learners while others do not distinguish between primary and high school learners [12, 13, 17, 18, 21, 24, 28, 29]. It is important to focus on these groupings separately as they are targeted by different cyberthreats and the best delivery methods also vary depending on the ages of the children involved.

Age-appropriate cybersafety education is essential as children of varying ages are at different developmental stages and levels of understanding [30, 31]. Children need targeted messages and activities that are appropriate for their age and cognitive development [32]. A study conducted by Lamond et al. [33] reveals that insufficient age-appropriate teaching materials are a barrier to implementing effective cybersafety education in formal classroom environments. In a study on password-practices for children, Prior and Renaud [34] argue that age-appropriateness maximises the efficacy of online cybersafety education when targeting children. Recognizing the importance of age-appropriateness, it is crucial to provide teachers with continuous professional development and support from a community of practice. This ensures that they can excel in teaching cybersafety to their students, tailoring the content and approaches based on the students' age level, knowledge, and abilities [35]. These studies confirm the need for age-appropriate and target specific cybersafety education.

Therefore, cybersafety initiatives for primary school learners in South Africa must be age-appropriate and should focus on the cyberthreats that target primary school learners. By targeting the cybersafety initiatives to the primary school learners in South Africa, challenges E and F would be addressed.

## 4.6 Context of Cybersafety Initiatives in South Africa

Addressing the context within which the target audience operates helps them receive the message for cybersafety education as effectively as possible. Some of the cybersafety initiatives in South Africa have incorporated materials from developed countries. These initiatives include themes such as: 'do not talk to strangers' or 'look both ways when crossing the street'. Learners are taught these concepts to stay safe in the real world, and they should be incorporated into cybersafety initiatives to provide context in the online world as well. Therefore, having these types of concepts will help children to understand cybersafety education in an effective way as they are relating to concepts they already know in real life [24, 36].

However, in using cybersafety initiatives from developed countries, the cultural context of South Africa and the issue of deciphering foreign accents, for example, have not been taken into consideration for primary school learners in South Africa [12]. Therefore, cybersafety initiatives for primary school learners in South Africa should be locally relevant and contextualised. For example, cybersafety educational games could
be played offline by using skills and concepts implemented in real life, and these games
could contain animal characters easily recognisable by South African children [12]. By
contextualising cybersafety initiatives for primary school learners according to the South
African culture and environment, it would assist in addressing challenge E.

## 4.7 Resources for Cybersafety Initiatives in South Africa

Due to the lack of a formalised school curriculum in South Africa to educate school learners to stay safe online, multiple websites and learning materials on cybersafety have been made available by universities, research institutions, as well as private and public organisations to keep children safe online [37–39]. Many of these activities are accessed online while a few can be accessed offline. This has been a barrier to many learners in South Africa, as many schools lack ICT infrastructure [15, 40]. According to Kritzinger and UNICEF [15, 41], studies have indicated that initial awareness-raising campaigns must involve more than a website presence to create awareness and knowledge. Therefore, different forms of resources apart from websites must be available when addressing cybersafety education. These can include games, books, poems, videos and posters. Such offline resources would most likely be the main delivery methods for public schools in South Africa, particularly those in rural areas. When selecting such resources, emphasis must be placed on whether or not they are age-appropriate, they align with the specified topics, and that they are able to be delivered in home languages and not just English, as has previously been the case. More so, resources can be adopted and adapted from other initiatives, so long as they are appropriate for the context and target audience.

According to Kritzinger and Padayachee [16], risks cannot be identified only as technological but may have a physiological, psychological and sociological influence on school learners, and it would be prudent to teach these learners cybersafety as part of a programme that includes health, social, physical and personal development issues. This paper supports that Life Orientation, as a subject in Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS), be used to introduce cybersafety education for primary school learners in South Africa. Life Orientation as a subject applies a holistic approach to the personal, social, intellectual, emotional and physical growth and development of learners [42]. Therefore, learners are equipped with real Life Orientation from an early age in the school curriculum. The same is needed with regard to cybersafety education as learners need to be equipped with knowledge and skills on how to navigate safely in cyberspace from an early age. Thus, the Life Orientation subject would serve to provide an appropriate platform in assisting school learners to have a better understanding of cybersafety education. By providing more relevant resources for primary school learners in South Africa, challenges A, B and E could be addressed.

## 4.8 Topics to be Covered in South Africa

From the content analysis conducted as described in this paper, there is a clear indication that the most common cybersafety topics in South Africa include cyberbullying (7 initiatives), inappropriate content (6 initiatives), identity theft (6 initiatives), sexting (4 initiatives), meeting strangers online (3 initiatives), and online addiction (3 initiatives). Table 1 showcases these prominent topics found in the reviewed initiatives.
<table><caption>**Table 1.** Six most prominent cybersafety topics</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Cybersafety topics</th><th colspan="7">Cybersafety Initiative Sources</th><th rowspan="2">TOTAL</th></tr><tr><th>[6]</th><th>[12]</th><th>[16]</th><th>[19]</th><th>[21]</th><th>[24]</th><th>[26]</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Cyberbullying</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>7</td></tr><tr><td>Inappropriate content</td><td>x</td><td></td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Identity theft</td><td>x</td><td></td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Sexting</td><td>x</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Meeting strangers online</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td></td><td>x</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Online addiction</td><td>x</td><td>x</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>x</td><td>3</td></tr></tbody></table>

An important factor in determining the topics that are covered is the age of the children that the initiatives are aimed at. For example, bullying is a long-highlighted concern in primary schools and so it would be prudent to extend anti-bullying campaigns to cyberspace.

Sexting and information sharing are often seen by older primary school children to be a form of teasing or childish banter. Both topics were covered by many initiatives and it can be deduced that this is to ensure that children understand the implications that such actions have and the legalities surrounding what they may deem as innocent pranks. Whilst identity theft is usually associated with credit card or banking fraud (and considered an adult issue), its prevalence in modern society may provide an explanation as to why the topic is covered in so many initiatives for primary school children. Further to this, identity theft is relevant to primary school learners if someone steals their identity online, on social media for example, and poses as them. By focusing the cybersafety topics on the most common cyberthreats experienced by primary school learners in South Africa, challenge E could be addressed.

## 4.9 Delivery Methods in South Africa

There is a clear indication that developed countries have made use of combined delivery methods in each initiative. These delivery methods include online videos, stories, films, eBooks, frameworks, curricula, PowerPoint slides, presentations and games. However, in South Africa, most initiatives have focused on one delivery method in each initiative to try and address cybersafety education and these include: frameworks, books, games, poems, flyers, posters, guidelines and online videos. It is therefore proposed that to improve cybersafety education in South Africa, initiatives should be multi-faceted and employ more than one delivery method. Mashiane et al. [14] suggest that a combination of delivery methods can be used to form a strategy. The aim of the strategy is to capitalize on the strengths of the delivery methods while attempting to minimise their weaknesses.

For primary school learners, games can be used to complement more formalised cybersafety curricula and to create curiosity and a positive attitude towards learning more about cybersafety [14]. Reid and Van Niekerk [29] support the idea of games by indicating that school learners prefer games as a learning tool. In addition, Giannakas
et al. [43] indicate that games can be formal and informal and that they can support outdoor activities in addition to traditional classroom methods. A further benefit is that a large variety of games can be printed offline and translated into many different languages [21]. Games can be played offline by using skills and concepts implemented in real life [44]. It is suggested that cybersafety education for primary school learners in South Africa can be improved through gaming and a combination of delivery methods, in order to address the challenges B, C and E.

## 5 Conclusion

As primary school is an entry point to the educational journey, most developed countries have found it beneficial to educate school learners about cybersafety at an earlier age. Therefore, it should be a priority for the South African government to provide resources to schools so that they can equip school learners on how to act safely whilst online as early as primary school level. However, the South African context has challenges evident in many developing countries. It should be noted that in the content analysis conducted for this study, the majority of the cybersafety initiatives for primary school learners in South Africa were published pre-Covid. However, it is now more important than ever that primary schools in South Africa are provided with cybersafety education through cybersafety initiatives, as an increasing number of cyberthreats are targeting young learners. This paper therefore proposes Key Elements to be considered when addressing cybersafety education in primary schools by analysing current cybersafety initiatives both globally and in South Africa.

These Key Elements provide a holistic lens through which challenges could be addressed and opportunities realised, relevant to primary school learners in South Africa. These Key Elements could be used to create guidelines to assist government, academia and other role players in developing cybersafety initiatives targeting South African primary school learners.

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