For many parents, paying school fees and sending upkeep to their children at school is one of the most tiresome tasks.
“I have to spare about two hours to go to the bank and line up to pay school fees. For pocket money, I have to drive to school and then give the student the money, which is also time-consuming,” says Peter Mugabo, a parent.
Aware of such struggles, in 2018, Xuldime, a digital platform, set about ensuring that parents can pay school fees from the comfort of their homes or offices.
Mr Laba Jemba, the enterprise leader at Xuldime, explains that their service provides parents with a way of managing their children’s educational expenses right from the comfort of their homes.
“Parents can use their smart phones to pay for school expenses through downloading the Xuldime Parent app from play store or use their (Xuldime)USSD code by dialing *270*7,” explains Jemba.
“And as if that’s not good enough, the services have also been integrated into the mobile money platforms including MTN and Airtel,” he adds.
Students have also been provided with a digital way of not only receiving pocket money from their parents but also use their smart cards (digital wallets) to buy things from the school.
“Parents can send their children money digitally which is stored wallet smart card which they can use to run their school shopping at the canteens,” says Jemba.
This reduces the risk of students carrying around a lot of money and also enables parents to monitor the way their children spend their money.
In addition, parents are also able to buy scholastic materials or other school requirements remotely on the platform by selecting the items, purchase them and the items will be delivered directly to the child/student.
“Items bought by the parents are delivered to the student where the student will authenticate the delivery using their smart card,” he says.
This saves parents a lot of time and gives them a platform that can save them a lot of time.
Through working with schools, parents now can also monitor their children’s’ performance on the platform and schools can also use the platform to manage events like scheduled school days.
Today multiple schools are using the platform to connect to parents and students.
Xuldime is among the firms that participated in the second edition of the 40-Days 40-FinTechs programme, organized by HiPipo in partnership with Crosslake Technologies, ModusBox and Mojaloop Foundation, and sponsored by the Gates Foundation.