With the country adjusting to the new normal, the education system has had to find new ways to avoid the transmission of COVID-19 and the introduction of a cashless tuckshop is among the few innovations.
A cashless payment system is becoming an area of focus for many schools such as Parktown High School for Girls and Dainfern College, which have used the system to flatten the rate of transmission.
According to the Gauteng department of education, Parktown High School for Girls was the first school in the region to have kicked off the initiative, which was endorsed by its school governing body.
Department spokesman Steve Mabona said: “The GDE has contracted service providers in selected schools to deliver food stuff, which is prepared by voluntary food handlers for the learners.
In the school the entire population of learners is therefore fed a nutritious meal.
Indeed, cashless is a good initiative by the SGB of the said school.
“The GDE has not ventured into this system and hence monitoring of such will be an SGB’s responsibility,” he said.
Will other schools follow suit?
“Not at this stage as GDE is providing nutrition programmes at selected schools only. The GDE is open to innovations as far as feeding is concerned and does not in any way suggest that it will not attempt to investigate this method, particularly in schools that have tuckshops.
“We do not promote tuckshops in schools where there is a feeding programme,” said Mabona.
Dainfern College tuckshops manager Gian Boffelli said: “The tuckshops do accept cash but there is also a debit card system in place, using students’ student cards.”
