iText for Parents

Parents use their cell phones to access a school's iText information menu.

All a parent needs to access your school's iText menu is your unique iText code in the format *120*494*777*XXXX#, with the XXXX portion being the identifier for your school. Schools need to communicate their iText access code to parents via their normal communication channels, such as the school's web site, circulars, newsletters or signatures/footers of your school's letters and emails.

Parents can save these iText codes in their cell phone address books, so there is no need to remember them.

Because the iText service is based on USSD technology, it follows the same navigation commands as other USSD based services. For instance, to select option 2 on a particular menu, a user would press "Answer", followed by "2", and then press the send (or green handset) button.

iText services work across all three South African cell phone networks, and works on all types of phones. Costs are billed directly by the cellular networks, and are billed in 20 second increments. Sessions last a maximum of 3 minutes, so users can rest assured that they will not incur exorbitant costs when using the service. Costs are currently billed at 67 cents/20 seconds for Vodacom users, 20 cents/20 seconds for MTN, and free for CellC/Virgin users.