Politics and policy
By KIARIE NJOROGE, gkiarie@ke.nationmedia.com
Bridge International Academies, a chain of low-cost
primary schools targeting children from low-income households in slums
and rural areas, has grabbed global attention after it featured on the
front page of The Economist newspaper as an improved alternative to public school education.
Bridge, which charges a fee of $6 (Sh600) a month per pupil,
has become popular with low-income households who are dissatisfied with
the quality of education in the crowded public schools since the
introduction of free primary education (FPE) in 2003 but cannot afford
private school fees.
“Bridge’s cost-cutting strategies include using
standardised buildings made of unfinished wooden beams, corrugated steel
and iron mesh, and scripted lessons that teachers recite from hand-held
computers linked to a central system,” The Economist says. “That saves on teacher training and monitoring.”
Use of the centralised teaching materials developed
in the United States and sent through tablets also means that content
is standardised.
Teachers are monitored through the gadgets which also give them lesson plans developed in the US.
Teachers are monitored through the gadgets which also give them lesson plans developed in the US.
Analysts say use of technology also gives the
school an edge over its public rivals as it introduces the learners to
the connected world early in their school life.
“The potential of technology to transform education
is unlikely to be realised in State institutions, where teachers and
unions resist anything that might increase oversight or reduce the need
for staff.”
Bridge’s rising profile also centres on its simplified administration, which allows it to cut on non-essential staff.
A typical Bridge Academy has only one employee involved in management — the academy manager.
“The vast majority of non-instructional activities
that an academy manager would normally have to deal with (billing,
payments, expense management, payroll processing, prospective admissions
and more) are all automated and centralised through a combination of
the academy manager’s smartphone application and the teachers’ tablet
application, all interconnected to a custom backend ERP,” Bridge says on
its website.
While in some areas classes are bloated due to FPE,
it is not uncommon to find classrooms in public primary schools near or
in Nairobi slums empty as parents prefer to take their children to
alternative schools.
Nairobi’s complementary primary schools, popular as
informal schools locally, had 192,578 pupils in 2013 compared to
204,152 in public primary schools.
The Nairobi county government reported that when
FPE was introduced, most parents in slums withdrew their children from
complementary schools and took them to the public schools.
But two years later, they took them back to the complementary schools citing quality concerns.
“Some of the complementary schools have registered
better performance in national examinations compared to public schools
and that has made them attractive to some parents,” the report adds.
The first Bridge International Academy was set up in
Nairobi’s Mukuru slums in 2009 by Jay Kimmelman and Shannon May. Today
there are nearly 412 schools in Kenya and Uganda, employing more than
5,000 staff.
The chain of schools is designed as a mass-market product
that needs at least a half a million pupils to produce returns.
Enrolment currently stands at 118,800.
“No small-scale, stand-alone operator can
single-handedly make the massive investments required to deliver quality
education at a price point accessible to families living on $2 a day
per person or less,” the group of schools says.
It adds that the amount of money required to
develop world-class curriculum, rigorous training systems, technology to
improve and automate core functions, and assessments and research are
substantial — meaning that a large number of pupils is needed to enable
it break-even.
“Such investments need to be amortised over a
sufficiently large number of pupils and would come with astoundingly
high risks,” the group says.
The business model and quality assurances have seen
Bridge catch the eye of international financiers, enabling it to get
funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World
Bank’s private investment arm, and CDC, the UK’s development finance
institution last year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) signed a $10
million (Sh860 million) preferred equity investment with Bridge while
CDC made a $6 million (Sh510 million) equity investment, with additional
funding from the US Venture Capital firm New Enterprise Associates.
The Economist said Bridge has the backing of Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates.
The rise of chains of schools like Bridge
International has led to suggestions that the government should consider
offering more incentives to investors to complement its investments in
the struggling education system.
Parents could also be given vouchers which they can top up and send their children to private schools.
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