Rural Campuses Connection Project (RCCP)

The Rural Campuses Connection Project (RCCP) was undertaken to provide high-bandwidth connections for rural university campuses to the South African National Research Network (SANReN). The then HESA received a grant of R28 million from the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) for the project in 2010, and appointed the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) as the implementing agency.

At the time of the project evaluation in October/November 2014, installation had been completed at 19 of the 22 sites identified, with the remaining sites scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014. A key finding of the evaluation exercise was that the RCCP had increased internet capacity exponentially at the connected sites. Success of this project inspired the DHET to fund what would become RCCP II to the tune of R71 million. This phase is set to run from March 2015 to March 2019. In consultation with member institutions, 112 sites were identified for possible connection in RCCP II. As at July 2017, connectivity to 14 of these sites was completed and work at 18 more was underway.  A mid-term review, scheduled to take place during the last quarter of 2017, will shed more light on this phase.

Click here for the Executive Summary of Phase I evaluation report.