Skoolara Terms of Service

Effective date: 6 July 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern use of the Skoolara platform ("Skoolara", "the platform") provided by Teleios IT Consulting (Pty) Ltd, operating the Skoolara platform ("we", "us"). The Terms apply both to the school that subscribes to Skoolara (the "Customer" or "School") and to end users of the platform — principals, teachers, administrative staff, parents, guardians and learners ("Users").

By subscribing to, accessing or using the platform, the School and each User accepts these Terms.

1. Acceptance of terms

1.1. These Terms, together with the Operator Agreement / Data Processing Addendum and any subscription order between the School and Skoolara, form the agreement between the School and Skoolara.

1.2. Users accept these Terms when they first access the platform. Where a User is a minor, access is enabled by the School on the basis of parental or guardian consent (see section 5).

1.3. If you do not accept these Terms, you may not use the platform.

2. Account roles

Skoolara supports the following account roles. Access to features and data is strictly role-based:

• Principal / School Administrator. Full administrative control of the school's account, including user management, configuration, and export of data.
• Teacher. Access to the learners in their classes and to tools for recording attendance, marks, homework and messages.
• Parent / Guardian. Access to the records of the child or children linked to their account, and to messaging with teachers and the school.
• Learner / Student. Age-appropriate access to their own records, assignments and messages. Access may be restricted by parental or school settings.
• Support staff (Skoolara). Limited access on a need-to-know basis for support, subject to audit logging.

Each User is responsible for keeping their credentials confidential and for activity carried out under their account.

3. Permitted use

3.1. Users may use the platform only for the purpose of operating, participating in, or supporting the educational activities of the subscribing school.

3.2. Users must comply with all applicable laws, including POPIA, the Children's Act 38 of 2005, the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996, and any provincial education regulations.

4. Prohibited use

Users and the School may not, and may not permit others to:

• scrape, harvest, or systematically extract personal information from the platform other than through authorised export features;
• attempt to re-identify any learner or other person from anonymised data;
• upload to the platform any content relating to a child for which the uploader does not have appropriate authorisation from the child's parent or guardian;
• upload unlawful, defamatory, harassing, sexually explicit, violent or otherwise harmful content;
• use the platform to send direct marketing to children;
• reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of the platform, except to the extent expressly permitted by law;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to any account, system or data;
• interfere with the operation of the platform, including by denial-of-service attacks or uploading malware;
• use the platform to train external machine-learning or artificial-intelligence models with personal information, other than features provided by Skoolara itself on the documented instructions of the School.

Skoolara may suspend or terminate access in the event of material breach of this section.

5. School responsibilities

The School, as the Responsible Party under POPIA (and, where relevant, the Controller under GDPR), is responsible for:

5.1. Lawful basis and consent. Ensuring that it has a lawful basis for processing personal information on the platform, including obtaining and recording the consent of a competent person (POPIA s35) for any processing of children's personal information that relies on consent.

5.2. User management. Creating, managing and de-provisioning user accounts; ensuring that only authorised persons have access; promptly disabling accounts when staff leave or a learner is no longer enrolled.

5.3. Data accuracy. Keeping learner and parent information accurate and up to date.

5.4. POPIA compliance. Fulfilling its own obligations under POPIA as Responsible Party, including information-officer registration, data-subject requests, breach notification to the Information Regulator where required, and statutory reporting.

5.5. Fit-for-purpose use. Using the platform only for the educational and administrative purposes for which it is provided, and not for unrelated commercial exploitation of personal information.

5.6. Acceptable-use enforcement. Enforcing an acceptable-use policy with its own staff, learners and parents consistent with these Terms.

6. Operator (Skoolara) responsibilities

Skoolara will:

6.1. Process personal information only on the documented instructions of the School, except where otherwise required by law.

6.2. Maintain a reasonable level of availability of the platform, targeting 99.5% monthly uptime excluding scheduled maintenance, beta features, and force-majeure events. Specific service-level commitments may be set out in an order form or service-level schedule.

6.3. Implement and maintain appropriate technical and organisational security measures (see the Operator Agreement for detail).

6.4. Notify the School without undue delay (and in any event within 72 hours of becoming aware) of any personal-information security compromise affecting the School's data.

6.5. Assist the School in responding to data-subject requests and in meeting its obligations under POPIA and GDPR.

6.6. Maintain an up-to-date list of sub-processors and notify the School in advance of changes.

7. Intellectual property

7.1. Skoolara platform. Skoolara and its licensors retain all rights, title and interest in the platform, including all software, user interfaces, documentation, branding and know-how. Subject to these Terms, Skoolara grants the School and its Users a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to access and use the platform during the subscription term.

7.2. School content. The School retains ownership of all content it and its Users upload to the platform ("School Content"). The School grants Skoolara a limited licence to process School Content solely to provide the platform.

7.3. Feedback. If a User provides suggestions or feedback, Skoolara may use such feedback without restriction and without obligation to the User or the School.

8. Fees and payment

8.1. Fees, billing frequency and payment terms are set out in the School's order form or subscription agreement.

8.2. Late payment may result in suspension of the platform after reasonable notice.

8.3. Skoolara may increase fees at renewal on reasonable prior written notice (at least 60 days).

9. Warranties, disclaimers and limitation of liability

9.1. Service warranty. Skoolara warrants that it will provide the platform with reasonable skill and care and substantially in accordance with the applicable order form and the availability commitment in clause 6.2.

9.2. Disclaimer of other warranties. Except as expressly stated in clause 9.1, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, the platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. Skoolara disclaims all other warranties, representations, terms and conditions, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement. Skoolara does not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that it will meet the School's particular requirements. Nothing in this clause excludes or limits any warranty, right or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 where and to the extent it applies.

9.3. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Skoolara's aggregate liability to the School under or in connection with the Terms, whether in contract, delict (tort) or otherwise, shall not exceed the fees paid by the School to Skoolara in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to liability.

9.4. Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages, including loss of profits, loss of business, loss of goodwill or loss of data (except to the extent that loss of data results from a party's breach of its security obligations).

9.5. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for:

• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;
• death or personal injury caused by negligence;
• a party's indemnification obligations; or
• any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited (including under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008).

10. Indemnities

10.1. The School indemnifies Skoolara against claims arising from:

• content uploaded by the School or its Users in breach of these Terms;
• the School's failure to obtain appropriate parental consent; or
• use of the platform in breach of applicable law.

10.2. Skoolara indemnifies the School against claims that the platform, as provided and used in accordance with these Terms, infringes a third-party intellectual-property right.

11. Suspension

Skoolara may suspend access to the platform where:

• the School is in material breach of these Terms and has failed to remedy the breach after reasonable notice;
• continued operation poses a security risk; or
• suspension is required to comply with law or the order of a competent authority.

12. Termination

12.1. Either party may terminate a subscription for material breach by the other party that is not remedied within 30 days of written notice.

12.2. The School may terminate at the end of the subscription term in accordance with the order form.

12.3. Skoolara may terminate on 90 days' notice if it ceases to offer the platform generally.

13. Data return and deletion on termination

13.1. On termination or expiry of the subscription, the School may export its data through the platform's export features for a period of 30 days after the effective date of termination.

13.2. After that period, Skoolara will delete the School's personal information from production systems within 30 days, and from backups within the applicable backup-retention window, except where retention is required by law.

13.3. On request, Skoolara will provide the School with written confirmation that deletion has occurred.

14. Confidentiality

Each party will keep confidential information of the other party confidential and use it only to perform its obligations under these Terms. This obligation survives termination for a period of five (5) years, except for personal information, which is governed by the Privacy Policy and the Operator Agreement.

15. Force majeure

Neither party is liable for failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, load-shedding beyond designed resilience, war, civil unrest, government action, or failure of upstream infrastructure providers, provided that the affected party takes reasonable steps to mitigate.

16. Governing law and jurisdiction

16.1. These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

16.2. The parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of the Republic of South Africa.

17. Changes to these Terms

17.1. Skoolara may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be notified to the School at least 30 days before they take effect.

17.2. Continued use of the platform after the effective date of a change constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

18. Miscellaneous

18.1. Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Operator Agreement and the order form, constitute the entire agreement between the parties.

18.2. Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in effect.

18.3. Assignment. Neither party may assign without the other's consent, except that Skoolara may assign to an affiliate or successor in the event of a merger or acquisition.

18.4. Notices. Notices must be in writing and sent to the addresses in the order form (for the School) and to legal@skoolara.co.za (for Skoolara).

End of Terms of Service.