Brookhouse
School has kicked off construction of its second Kenyan campus in a
multi-million shilling expansion project, which will double the
institution’s student capacity from the current 800.
The
high-end school in Runda, which will offer education from kindergarten
to secondary school, has started accepting bookings ahead of its
projected September 2017 opening.
“We began
construction last month and we expect to be done by early August just in
time for the September opening,” Brookhouse management told the Business Daily.
UK-based
equity fund Educas, which bought Brookhouse last year for a record
Sh3.6 billion, has now tapped Lea Gilbert as the new headteacher for its
upcoming campus.
Ms Gilbert has been the head teacher
at Gildredge House — an academy based in East Sussex, England — for
three years. She resigned in September to pursue her “desire to branch
into international education”.
“We have already started
taking bookings for the new campus. Mrs Gilbert shall be joining us
around April next year to serve as the Brookhouse Runda headteacher,”
Brookhouse said.
The school’s former owners, including
its founder Piyush Mehta and private equity firm AfricInvest, had
estimated that the new campus would cost about Sh1 billion to build. The
new board did not disclose how much they expect to spend on the
project.
Brookhouse, which offers the British
curriculum, operates one campus in Karen, neighbouring the Nairobi
National Park, but has been harbouring plans to expand for years.
Their
establishment of the new campus is now set to raise competition in the
lucrative international schools education sector where analysts see room
for further growth.
These elite institutions charge
fees running into hundreds of thousands of shillings for each of the
three terms in a year, making them the preserve of affluent businessmen,
diplomats, corporate executives, top government officials and
politicians.
International schools in Kenya include the
German School, International School of Kenya, Braeburn, Rosslyn
Academy, Kenton and St Andrews Turi. Their main attraction is that they
offer students world-class education, preparing them for admissions to
universities in the US and Europe.
Brookhouse’s annual
school fee is Sh600,000 for kindergarten pupils and between
Sh750,000-Sh1.35 million for primary school learners.
Parent
who enroll their secondary school students at the school part with
between Sh1.35 million and Sh2.25 million a year in fees.
The
new campus is designed to cater to residents of the neighbouring
affluent Runda, Nyari, Gigiri and Muthaiga estates, some of whom take
their children to schools far from home.
“The decision
to set up the new school in Runda was so that parents in the estate and
its environs are able to access our school much more conveniently,”
Brookhouse management said.
“We have parents who would
drive their children all the way to our Karen campus and back in the
evening. Some of them have now applied to transfer their children to the
upcoming campus.”
Brookhouse and its peers have benefited from the growing ranks of the rich and upper middle class who can afford the fees.
They
include businessmen, politicians, top professionals and expatriates
working for multinationals, foreign governments and global institutions
such as the United Nations.
A significant number of Kenyan politicians, for instance, take their children to the Molo-based St Andrew’s Turi.
Mr Sammy Onyango, the CEO of Deloitte East Africa, and Nelson Kuria (former CIC Insurance CEO), are some of the executives who have taken their children through these international schools.
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