The agreement
These terms are an agreement between you and the Department of Basic Education of the Republic of South Africa (the DBE, "we", "us") for your use of the SLP Platform (the "platform"). The platform gives educators lesson-by-lesson access to the DBE's Scripted Lesson Plans for Comprehensive Sexuality Education, and an AI coach that helps personalise them.
By registering for an account or using the platform, you accept these terms and our privacy policy. If you do not accept them, please do not use the platform.
Who may use the platform
The platform is for educators who teach Life Skills or Life Orientation at South African schools, and for DBE staff who support them. You may use it only if you:
- are 18 years or older;
- are employed or engaged as an educator at a school, or work for the DBE or a provincial education department; and
- register with accurate details about yourself and your school.
Learners must never be given access to the platform or to your account. It is not designed for them.
Your account
- You are responsible for keeping your password private and for everything done through your account. Choose a strong password you do not use elsewhere.
- Tell your school's platform administrator, or contact us, at once if you think someone else has used your account.
- One account per educator. Do not share accounts or create an account for someone else.
- Keep your profile details, including your school and the grades you teach, up to date.
The lessons and how you may use them
The Scripted Lesson Plans, Educator guides, Learner books, worksheets and related material on the platform (the "materials") are the copyright of the Department of Basic Education, 2019 and later, and were developed with the support of partners including UNESCO and USAID. All rights are reserved.
We give you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive licence to view, download and print the materials for teaching in your own classroom and preparing your own lessons. You may hand out learner worksheets to your learners. You may adapt how you deliver a lesson, as the DBE's guides allow.
You may not:
- sell the materials, charge for access to them, or use them in any commercial product;
- republish or redistribute them, in print or online, beyond your own classroom;
- remove the DBE's name, copyright notice or lesson numbering; or
- present altered materials as the DBE's official content.
Any other use needs the prior written permission of the Department of Basic Education.
The AI coach
The AI coach generates personalised teaching guides and answers using an automated model. It is offered to support your professional judgement, not to replace it.
Answers from the AI coach can be wrong, incomplete or out of date. Always check them against the Educator guide before you teach. You remain responsible for what happens in your classroom.
- Do not enter the names or personal information of learners, parents or colleagues into the AI coach.
- Do not use the AI coach to generate content that is unlawful, harmful, or inconsistent with the CAPS curriculum or the DBE's guidance on sexuality education.
- Guides generated for you are yours to use in your classroom under the same licence as the materials. We may keep them in your account so you can return to them.
- We may limit, change or withdraw the AI coach at any time, including where a provider changes its service.
Your notes and content
The notes you save and the answers you give on the teaching-context form belong to you. You give us a licence to store and display them to you, and to send the relevant parts to the AI provider when you use the AI coach, so that the platform can work as described. We do not publish your notes or share them with other educators.
You are responsible for what you write. Do not include information that identifies a learner, or content that is defamatory, discriminatory or otherwise unlawful.
Acceptable use
You agree not to:
- use the platform for anything other than lesson preparation and teaching support;
- try to gain access to another person's account, to the administration area, or to parts of the platform you are not authorised to use;
- copy the platform's software, scrape its content, or interfere with its operation or security;
- upload malicious code or attempt to overload the service; or
- use the platform in a way that breaks South African law or your professional code of conduct.
Availability and changes
We aim to keep the platform available, but we cannot promise it will be free of interruptions or errors. We may suspend it for maintenance, security or legal reasons, and we may add, change or remove features or materials as the curriculum and the DBE's programmes develop. Where a change is significant we will tell you when you next sign in.
Ending your access
You may stop using the platform at any time, and you may ask us to delete your account as described in the privacy policy.
We may suspend or close your account if you break these terms, if you are no longer an educator or DBE staff member, if your school or province asks us to, or if the platform is discontinued. Where reasonable we will give you notice first. Closing your account ends your licence to use the materials, except for copies you already printed for your own classroom.
Our responsibility to you
The platform and the materials are provided as a free public service. To the extent the law allows, the DBE is not liable for any loss or damage that arises from your use of the platform, from any interruption or error in it, or from anything the AI coach generates. Nothing in these terms limits any liability that cannot be excluded under South African law, including under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 where it applies.
You agree to use the materials responsibly and in line with the DBE's guidance, and you accept that you remain responsible for your professional decisions in the classroom.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute will be dealt with by the courts of South Africa, unless the law gives you the right to another forum. If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
We may update these terms from time to time. The effective date at the top of this page shows when they last changed. Your continued use of the platform after a change means you accept the new terms.
Contact us
Department of Basic Education
222 Struben Street, Pretoria, 0001
Private Bag X895, Pretoria, 0001
Email: info@dbe.gov.za
Call centre: 0800 202 933
For help with your account, contact your school's platform administrator first.