Schoolpay eases fee pressure at the click of a button

For mother-of-two, Susan Muthui, just like other Kenyan parents, the school opening season is a nightmare.

It usually means taking a day off work and spending hours queuing in banking halls to deposit fees.

Then it means queuing again at the finance office in school to present the banking slip as proof of payment.

But now, thanks to a new innovative payment system for schools called SchoolPay by PesaPal, this could be a thing of the past.

SchoolPay opens up the opportunity for parents like Ms Muthui to pay their children’s school fees with a click of a button —on their mobile phone.

Susan will no longer have to dedicate three days every year to sorting out payment for her children’s education.

From the comfort of her office at Kenya Data Networks where she is the Public Relations manager, Ms Muthui can transfer the Sh70,000 needed to pay fees for her daughter Melissa, 7, and her son Trevor 6, using M-Pesa.

“It is always such an inconvenience having to pay school fees and I can spend hours at a time queuing outside Equity Bank waiting with other mothers wanting to pay their school fees. As the schools demand payment before the start of the school term, parents go to the bank on the same day, creating mile-long queues down the street. I think the SchoolPay scheme could really solve a lot of problems and I will be able to pay the fees whenever and wherever”, she said.

PesaPal, a payment platform that allows Kenyans to buy and sell on the internet, has partnered with Safaricom to revolutionise the Kenyan way of paying and receiving school fees.

According to Ministry of Education figures, in 2008, one out of every four people is some where in the education system, meaning this innovation can solve inefficiencies in the banking that are world affecting millions of Kenyans.

The idea for SchoolPay came from the founder of PesaPal, Agosta Liko.

Presenting at the AITEC Banking and Mobile Money conference in Nairobi this week, he said he was inspired by the day-to-day struggles his mother encountered as a high school headteacher.

It created repeated difficulties for her to make payments and receipts and she wanted a more efficient way of managing school finances.

Her son Mr Liko recognised the market for a simple solution to paying school fees.

“I think this system is perfect for the Kenyan context because parents are already using M-Pesa and banks charge schools high transaction fees. Pesapal helps schools avoid these expenses.” Mr Liko said.