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Last year, we were informed by the bank that they won’t be issuing cheques as form 31 December 2021. By then we were using cheques to withdraw money and Ncobile, Fortunate and Michelle were signing the cheques. All money would need to be put into and taken out of the account using internet banking. In a meeting, parents decided to elect new signatories to replace Ncobile and Fortunate, who have not been teaching at the school for some years.
Two women members of the school committee were then elected on basis that they were permanent resident in the area, they can read and write and were willing to be signatories even when they don’t have kids at preschool.
More about these women
Nonhlanhla Nkambule is 25-year-old woman from the community. Her first-born son was schooling at Matjana last year and it was her first time to be a parent at Matjana. She is always willing to help and would at times come and ask our teachers if they needed her help.
The second woman is Make (Mrs) Dlamini who had a granddaughter at preschool last year. She said, “This is the fourth time, I am a ‘parent’ at Matjana preschool”. Three of her children schooled at Matjana and then last year it was her granddaughter. Make Dlamini was also a chairperson of the school last year. This was her first time to be in a committee at Matjana.
What are their experiences
When they were told that part of their role will be approving money to be taken out from the school account, they said they both thought they will literally have to go the bank in town. They had never used internet banking. Make Dlamini said, “To me, when I was told about the internet banking, it didn’t make sense as it something which I have never done or heard about before.”
She continued to say even though she was told about her role in approving money through internet banking, she never thought that she will do it while in a small village like Kaphunga. On the other side, Nonhlanhla said she had heard about internet banking before, but she wasn’t sure how it worked. She said, “I thought we will have to go to the bank whenever we do the internet banking.”
Nonhlanhla, who owns her own smart phone, has done most of the approvals. She said at first it took her ages to work it out despite getting help. She said, “I think the first time (in January) I took the whole day still trying to log in and once I had log in it also took me some hours to work out how to do the approvals”. However, now she takes just a few seconds. She said, “Last month I took less than 2 minutes to approve transactions, which Michelle had ssent for me to authorise.”
Make Dlamini still hasn’t had a chance to authorise a transaction, but she is planning to do it next month, when we send our workers their pay.
Both women agreed that internet banking is the easiest way for the school to get money, better than having to wait queues in the bank. Nonhlanhla said, “Although our area doesn’t have good internet connection, I think this is the best way for the school. “Teacher Londiwe attest to this and added, “It is also easy for us to know how much money because unlike in the past, we don’t have to go to the bank but we just ask the signatories to check for us on the internet.”