POS machines for schools

GOVERNMENT is making frantic efforts to ensure schools have Point of Sale machines to enable parents pay fees without challenges, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Dr Lazarus Dokora has said.

Addressing stakeholders in the education sector and Information Communication Technologies industry in Harare recently, Dr Dokora said it was important that schools embraced technology and implemented the use of plastic money.

“We also note on the recent budget review statement, the request that we had made to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, to say, we need all our schools to be capacitated with Point of Sale machines so parents can swipe — so school kids can swipe at the tuck shop,” he said.

“So, we get into the culture of using plastic money mainstreaming effortlessly, painlessly, but it will take some effort to get that through.

“In liaison with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, we issued a statement at the beginning of the year, but sometimes our managers in the districts here will say, ‘well the schools are wanting cash for the uniforms not swipe money’.

“And you look everywhere and say, ‘where are you going to get the cash?’ You cannot be going against the grain.

“You have to be compliant. So, a special effort is now being made by the Central Government through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to capacitate our schools so they can have the swipe machines in place.”

Dr Dokora emphasised the need to move with the times to ease transactions in schools.

He said while some authorities in schools could be resisting technology, there was nowhere parents could get cash to make payments, hence the availing of the Point of Sale machines.