STUDENT Card Limited (SCL), a Jamaican technology provider to education institutions, has been awarded a grant by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to utilise its technology solutions in improving Ghana’s overall educational platform — from creating cashless institutions to the administration of school feeding programmes.

The grant was awarded through the African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) and provides funding and other support to ensure SCL’s successful implementation in the West African country of 25 million people. Student Card is Jamaica’s first cashless payment solution for students, which allows parents to pay for school fees and student lunches with the use of a prepaid card. Based around the thesis of a cashless society and given the increase in school robberies and other related risks, founder Khary Robinson created SCL as a way to alleviate the issues associated with children handling cash each day. The solution also enhances the administrative processes of educational institution by tracking all transactions and processes across the educational facility.

Today, SCL operates in over 40 schools throughout Jamaica, is used by over 80,000 students and parents, and has over 100 contracted top-up locations to pay for school fees and add value to student lunch cards. Robinson in a press release explained that the grant was a great honour for his Jamaica-based company.

“The ADM grant was only awarded to 14 of the 733 candidates that aim to enhance the African continent with innovative businesses. In fact, our technology has been positioned as the platform of choice to aid in feeding over 500,000 students in Ghana daily,” he said. “We expect this application will reach millions of other students across the continent in the coming years.”

The ADM is an entrepreneurial business programme that seeks to boost economic opportunity in Sub-Saharan Africa through sustainable start-up and established enterprises. During the ADM conference, finalists pitched their business plans to an independent panel of volunteer judges from business, non-governmental organisations, diaspora development organisations and academia. Out of 733 innovative business proposals, the panel evaluated 58 final business plans and selected final grant recipients based on criteria that included the business idea and management framework, prospects for sustainability, capacity to leverage diaspora resources and results orientation.

Ghana has a student population of approximately six million students which SCL will seek to serve. Initially, SCL will be implementing the system into the Government school-feeding programme which currently provides meals to 500,000 students per day. The administration of this US$250-million programme will be improved from its current manual process to an electronic card-based platform provided by SCL. Robinson believes that not only will the Student Card system improve the educational system in Ghana, but will also prove as a catalyst for his and other Jamaican companies to provide goods and services to the vast, yet underserved market of Sub-Saharan Africa.