Low Tuition Community School—Supported by a President’s Strenuous Effort (Day 46)

Today, I went to another school that exists on Shauri Yako, Mombasa. Renovating a private house, the school established last year. As same as the Matopeni School, this school is also community school.

When I contacted with her the day before the visiting, the president of the school kindly welcomed me to the school, and introduced me all the school system on the visiting day.

According to her, the school has founded last year. Separating the NGO managed school that is within 5 minutes by walk from her school and she was a president of the school, she decided to start her own school.

The school holds a baby class, Kg (Kindergarten) 1-3 classes, Grade 1-7 classes (Primary level), and the tuition is surprisingly low- Ksh 500 per term. Since the president has more than 30 years experience as a nursery teacher, this school is pretty organized. For example, the teacher makes the graphs of examinations to see the progress, applies teacher evaluation system, and providing afternoon nap for all students. She is also growing chickens and vegetables for funding.

Surprisingly this school provides lunch for all students, and the menu of the lunch differs every day (See the following picture). The president said that she realized some children didn’t bring lunch, so she started the lunch. She mentioned, “Anytime I saw the children eat lunch, I feel happy!”

Since this school is also struggling to gather tuitions from all students, because the surrounding area is also slum, and the amount of tuition is far less than the necessary cost, I wonder how does this school manage the management cost. I’m not sure that it is correct, but she replied that she managed the gap with donations. She is a very enthusiastic teacher as well as an aggressive businesswoman.

This school provides an ideal environment comparing with Matopeni School, such as lunchtime, afternoon nap, desks and chairs, and so on and this environment has been kept by the president’s strenuous effort.

The quality of education is affected by cost, but gathering tuition from all pupils is difficult in slum areas, keeping quality education in the community school system is challenging. Also, relying on donations or funding from outside organization is also high risk in terms of sustainability.

Those toys  are also donations 

Chickens for funding