Industry
Education
IT that keeps lessons running and student data protected — even when the IT person resigned last term.
POPIA & custodial student data · Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace for Education · Computer lab management · Content filtering · BYOD onboarding · Holiday-window deployments.
Book an Education assessment →What we see
Enterprise complexity on a church-mouse budget.
Schools, colleges, and training providers run more IT than most businesses their size. Hundreds of learner accounts, a computer lab, a Wi-Fi network kids will absolutely try to break, BYOD policies, parent portals, finance systems, LMS platforms, and a payroll dependent on it all working before term starts.
The team holding this together is often one part-time IT teacher + the friend of the principal who’s “good with computers”. When they leave, everything fragile becomes visible at once.
Our job is to put the boring infrastructure underneath quietly — so that when the IT person does change next year, the institution doesn’t notice. And while we’re at it, claim the Microsoft 365 Education licensing your school probably qualifies for free.
What we cover
Designed for the school year, not the office calendar.
Six things education needs that the average MSP doesn’t think about.
POPIA for minors’ data
Student data is custodial — held on behalf of parents. The standard is higher than a normal POPIA workload. We help you map data, write the policies the auditor wants to see, and prove the technical controls are real.
Microsoft 365 / Google for Education
If you’re a verified educational institution, most of the M365 stack (or Google Workspace equivalent) is free or near-free — including security tools and storage. Most schools don’t claim it. We register, verify, migrate, and configure.
Computer lab management
One image, deployed across every lab machine. Locked down so the most curious Grade 9 can’t break it. Reset to a clean state overnight. Software updates pushed during holidays. The IT teacher gets their weekends back.
BYOD onboarding
Term starts. 400 new devices arrive with the learners. We pre-build the onboarding portal so a staff member with no IT background can enrol a device into your network safely in under two minutes.
Content filtering, age-appropriate
The internet is a hostile environment for under-18s. We filter at the network edge with profiles tuned by age group — primary, secondary, staff. Logged, reportable, defensible to parents.
Holiday-window deployments
You can’t replace 200 lab machines during term. We plan around the school calendar — major upgrades land in the December and June breaks, with the lab ready for Day 1 of term.
What runs while you sleep
Quiet overnight, ready by 07:30.
Lessons start at the bell — not when IT is ready. We do the work in the small hours so everything’s green by the time the first learner logs in.
- ✓ Last night’s backup verified (admissions records, learners’ work)
- ✓ Lab machine images refreshed to clean state
- ✓ Content filter logs reviewed for the day’s incidents
- ✓ Antivirus + EDR scans across staff & lab devices
- ✓ Internet failover tested — lessons don’t stop if fibre drops
- ✓ M365 license utilisation tracked (free-tier eligibility re-checked)
- ✓ Suspicious login attempts flagged (especially around exam time)
- ✓ Parent portal uptime verified for the next morning
What you can give the governing body
Termly evidence, not vague reassurances.
Termly governance report
Uptime, incidents, content filter blocks (categorised, no personal data), staff cyber training completion, license utilisation. One page. Designed for the governing body meeting.
POPIA compliance dossier
Data map, processing register, technical controls evidence, breach response plan. Ready to hand to the Information Regulator if they ask. Updated every term.
Parent portal SLA
The portal where parents see reports, pay fees, and check the calendar — tracked separately with its own uptime target. Because angry parents are louder than angry teachers.
Annual staff cyber training
Teachers click phishing emails more than financial-services staff. We run a short annual awareness module, track completion per teacher, and report the percentage back to you.
“We were drowning in user tickets and 3am server alerts. Two years on Burika’s managed support, our team hasn’t seen an after-hours incident — and our staff actually like calling IT now.”
— IT Manager, EurekaIT, Johannesburg
“Burika audited our setup, fixed three POPIA gaps we didn’t know we had, and now monitors everything quietly. Our MD finally stopped asking me “are we covered?””
— Operations Director, Joubea