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Bridge vs Reality: a study of Bridge International Academies’ for-profit schooling in Kenya
Bridge International Academies (BIA) is a large and expanding business that provides for-profit private education in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and India. With funding and support from global edu-business Pearson, the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development, and high profile investors such as Mark Zuckerberg and the Gates Foundation, BIA’s claims regarding its services portray the company as providing the solution to educational access for the poor.
The study looks at the claims of quality, accessibility and affordability of BIA’s educational provision. It finds that far from providing high quality education at a low cost to the most disadvantaged in Kenya, BIA education is of poor quality, inaccessible for the very poor and disadvantaged and is ultimately unaffordable for most families in the communities in which it operates.
More specifically, it reveals that in Kenya, BIA students are taught largely by unqualified, overworked, teaching staff: up to 71.5% of teachers were found to be unqualified, and the average teaching hours per week amount to 59. BIA teachers are forced to use a scripted curriculum-developed in the US. Lessons are read from tablets, leaving little, if any, room for adaptation to meet the learning needs of students The curriculum used is not approved by Kenyan authorities. In fact, the Kenyan curriculum authority has concluded: “most of the content taught [by BIA] is not relevant to the Kenyan curriculum objectives.”
Download the report here:
Education International & Kenya National Union of Teachers (2016) Bridge vs Reality: a study of Bridge International Academies’ for-profit schooling in Kenya
