Africa
Affordable Private Schools in Africa
Affordable private schools (APS) have proliferated in many low-income communities throughout Africa as the demand for quality education has outpaced the government’s ability to provide enough space for school children.
The government’s free system for primary and secondary schools simply can’t keep up with the growing population. As a result, the private sector has stepped in to fill the gap. Many governments throughout Africa have even encouraged the growth of APS while searching for ways to ensure that they meet appropriate curriculum and quality standards.
According to research from 2005, as many as 70 percent of schoolchildren in Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous state, attended APS. Among the reasons parents have turned away from the free public system in Africa are teacher absenteeism, crowding in classrooms and the high hidden costs associated with the schools, such as mandatory uniforms. Some evidence has also shown that students of APS have scored higher on English and math exams than children from government-run schools, whose teachers often earn a reported three to four times that of private-school teachers.
Despite demand for low-cost schools in poor communities, school entrepreneurs face various challenges. For example, Nigeria requires schools to occupy at least one hectare of land and provide a minimum of 12 classrooms in order to be registered by the government. Meeting such standards can be difficult for schools that operate in overcrowded slum communities.
Most research on Africa’s APS focuses on Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria, but other countries including Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe show evidence of APS.
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