Private schools under major Covid-19 threat

In September 1998, my wife, Joyce, and I established the first primary school in Narok District within Narok town. For avoidance of doubt, I always like to clarify that it was her idea, not mine, to give credit where it is due.

Although officers at the Ministry of Education looked upon us with scepticism (thinking that we were only in it, to make money), the community welcomed the new school with open arms, seeing an opportunity for their children to receive quality education in a more structured and less crowded environment.

After three years of sensitising the community and creating awareness about the value of education especially for the girl-child, many more private schools started to mushroom within the town and the district. The idea of private schools became firmly entrenched, filling an important gap on the supply side of education provision.

This week Peter Ndoro, the chief executive officer of the Kenya Private Schools Association (KPSA) said so far, 227 private primary and secondary schools have ceased operations as a result of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving 56,000 learners without schools to report back to.

Mind you, these are only the ones which are registered with KPSA, a voluntary membership organisation, so there are many more who have fallen victim to the same fate. Mr Ndoro went on to say that more schools could face closure in January 2021 as they are already struggling to maintain learners who have reported in Grade 4, Standard 8 and Form 4.

He lamented that the government’s pledge of loans worth Sh7 billion to cushion private schools from the effects of the pandemic have yet to be released. In addition, at least 1,200 teachers have been rendered jobless not to mention the numerous support staff and suppliers who have likewise been adversely affected.

Albeit some private schools have been able to convert their premises into alternative users, others have not bee so lucky as the residential and hospitality sectors are also under threat. In any event, converting premises also calls for financing.

There is a strong perception that teaching in private schools is better in terms of more teacher presence, better student/teacher ratio, teaching activity and approaches that are more likely to lead to improved outcomes than in public schools. I must add that these perceptions are not always supported by fact as we often find some public schools doing better in exams than private schools, but the private school candidate is more likely to emerge as a more roundly developed character.

In a number of countries in sub-Saharan countries, studies have shown that the elimination of user fees in public primary schools has been followed by dramatic increase in private schools. The rise in demand for private schools has been associated with high demand for school places in the face of limited supply of quality schools from government.

In Kenya, there is a misconception that private schools are limited to high-cost exclusive schools but there is a large segment of private schools in the lower echelons. These schools are borne out of community or private initiatives to establish schools mainly within urban settlements or rural areas, schools that levy low fees and are often referred to as low-cost private schools.

Endogenous selection into private schools is evident with studies showing that poor parents bypass free public primary schools and send their children to otherwise fee-paying private schools due to perceived better quality in private schools. There are other considerations such as proximity to households and diets especially for younger children.

Kenya has a long history of private sector education provision. Private sector education providers include non-governmental organisations (NGOs), faith-based organisations, community-based providers, and private for-profit agents. Of these, the faith-based (churches and other religious institutions) can be said to be the pioneers in the education sector, some of them having started schools at the turn of the twentieth century. Many of these are still amongst the best schools, although they have been re-classified as public schools.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, private school provision expanded owing to structural adjustment programmes that led to a reduction in public education funding, attracting the entry of private for-profit agents.

Despite these developments, private education remained out of reach for children from poor and rural households as many community-financed school projects were not financially sustainable.

Today, our primary school education provision is characterised by free public education and a huge market for fee-charging private schools. Private school education accounts for about 25 percent of the total primary school sector, a sizeable contribution by any measure.

This does not, however, take into account the highly unregulated and unregistered non-formal private sector schools in urban informal settlements and rural areas.

Private schools in Kenya reflect a diverse range of institutions ranging from highly unregulated and unregistered non-formal schools mainly located in informal settlements and rural areas, formal private academies in middle and high-income urban areas and, very few and often old traditionally exclusive private schools offering foreign curriculum such as General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE).

By conservative estimates the private school sector accommodates 2.5 million learners. As the ongoing financial strain continues to bite the private sector schools there is really no place for their students to go, seeing that the public schools are already overstretched.

The private sector has traditionally been a strong pillar of the education sector. It is clear that even under better circumstances the government cannot provide the entire needs of the sector therefore they have to rely on the private sector to fill in the gap.

The government must step in immediately with substantial funding to the private school sector to avoid an unmitigated disaster next year when, hopefully, schools reopen in full.