International Journal of
Information and Education Technology

Abstract

School learners are attractive candidates for cyber-safety attacks. Advances in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) devices, and the surge in Internet usage, poses significant risks to users with poor cyber-safety awareness and security practices. An example of such users are school learners. Therefore, school learners should be made aware of cyber-safety or safe Internet usage, through awareness programmes as early as possible. Applying the classical Theory of Planned Behaviour in a survey of 109 schoolteachers across 18 schools in 2 districts, the results of a multiple regression analysis unveil that: 1) attitude does not predict the schoolteachers’ intention to raise cyber-safety awareness at their schools in the next 12 months, nor does it predict the schoolteachers’ behaviour of raising cyber-safety awareness in their teaching; and 2) subjective norms and perceived behavioural control predict the schoolteachers’ intention and behaviour. In light of this, the South African Department of Basic Education (DBE) is encouraged to identify influential schoolteachers (i.e. phase heads, sports and cultural coordinators, principals and their deputies, etc.), and to groom them into cyber-safety awareness advocates, for the purposes of influencing other teachers or their peers. Also, the DBE should provide teachers with the requisite resources, opportunities, and support which facilitates cyber-safety awareness in schools, to empower teachers to adopt this highly desired behaviour.