Bridge International Academies: Education
Bridge International Academies: Education
Bridge International Academies: Education
From the creation of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals of 2000 to the 2015
Sustainable Development Goals there has been a notable shift in focus on the all-important issue
of education. The previous set of goals focused on increasing enrollment. Today the emphasis is
on providing an inclusive and quality education.
And for good reason: Rising enrollment must be parents and entrepreneurs opened small schools to serve
accompanied by better quality education, and often it has the needs of children in their communities. In informal
not been. In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, there was a settlements in Nairobi, it was estimated that 60 percent of
20 percent increase in the net enrollment rate from 2000 children attended schools that were privately-run.⁴ Such
to 2015, yet while more children attended school, too often schools charged fees, but those were often lower than or
they were not progressing.¹ As of 2011, only three out of ten on par with public school fees. These schools took steps to
third year school children in Kenya could do second-year improve quality, but most lacked the resources to invest
work.² Public schools were also associated with unofficial heavily in new teaching materials, teaching methods, or
payments, including desk, homework, and other fees.³ school management.
It is not surprising, then, that parental dissatisfaction with Bridge International Academies was established to
the quality and cost of public primary schools pushed change the quality of education available to children in
many families to look for other options. In many places underserved, low-income communities. It is the first
1
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
2
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
3
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
• Population: To help ensure adequate demand and In 2008 the three friends moved to Nairobi and launched
class size, the population density had to be at least Bridge International Academies. Their goal was to address
125 persons per square kilometer and total minimum a single yet seemingly intractable problem: How to create
population had to be at least 30 million. a school or system of schools that ensures children learn
but that is still affordable and accessible to all?
• Language: English had to be one of the official national
languages, enabling the founding team to more easily BUILDING THE MODEL
engage in all aspects of developing the academic,
technological, and business aspects of the model. The co-founders knew that the success and sustainability
of Bridge International Academies would rely on their
• Exam Pass Rate: The co-founders looked at countries ability to deliver a world-competitive nursery school
where a significant majority of poor children failed and primary education at a cost that a parent living in
national or international exams even after completing poverty could afford. To do this, they would need to invest
primary school. large sums in research, curriculum development, and
technology. And to pay for that, they would need to base
• Private School Experience: Where parents had already the model on scale. Through self-funding, they began the
opted to take their children to small, community run, research and development phase, asking questions such
low-fee private schools, it was clear that there was as: What support does a teacher need to improve learning?
demand for improved, affordable education and that a What does a child need to feel engaged in the classroom?
market existed. How can we lower costs? Bridge aimed to deliver
higher results at a cost that was lower than or equal to
government spending per child, and thus spur innovation
across the entire system.
4
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
4.3
People per
household
$1.60
Income
5
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
2009- 2013–
2016
2012 2015
Academies open in
37 academies in Kenya 213 academies— India and public-
makes Bridge the largest over 50,000 private partnership
education chain in Africa students reached with Liberia signed
The first Bridge International Academy opened in Nairobi’s Core to Bridge’s approach was to train teachers to move
Mukuru slum in 2009, offering kindergarten and two years away from the blackboard, using the teacher guide to
of primary school. Bridge decided to only engage with provide in-class work according to the student’s level of
neighborhoods where per capita income levels were $2 per learning, and prompt teachers to walk around the room,
day or less. From the beginning, Bridge knew that close check students’ work for understanding, and ask questions
coordination with community leaders was vital. It worked to encourage inquiry.
with them to educate families about Bridge and invited
members of the community to visit an academy. Bridge Bridge developed its courses based on Kenya’s national
built new schools on leased sites using low-cost materials curriculum and government standards, with additional
and standardized designs, ensuring cost-effective volume emphasis on reading and critical thinking skills. Bridge
procurement and rigorous quality control. students would spend more “time on task”—a total of 47.5
hours from Monday to Friday and an option of five hours
GOING BEYOND TRADITIONAL METHODS on Saturday.
Learning from a technique it saw in the
U.S., Bridge developed teacher guides that To support early childhood development, Bridge used low-
provided detailed, step-by-step instructions cost but effective learning tools—repurposed egg cartons,
for teachers to use in every subject and learning period. colored plastic rings, and mini chalkboards, for example—
The idea was to empower teachers to be fully equipped to reinforce colors, counting, and basic math with custom-
to focus on student engagement and comprehension— designed educational toys and workbooks to develop
and free them from worrying about content by providing students’ motor skills and reinforce classroom content.
factually correct, engaging, and well-paced lessons. At the primary level, students had access to workbooks for
phonics, comprehension, and problem-solving, geoboards
to practice math, science kits to learn by doing, and maps
to learn about their community and the world beyond.
6
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
the price point for Bridge tuition an extremely important In order to maintain its affordable fee structure,
factor. To set its fees, Bridge conducted extensive surveys Bridge aims for a teacher-to-student ratio of
to understand how much parents living in Nairobi’s 45-1, so the institute puts a great deal of focus
informal settlements earned and how much they were on classroom management, leadership, and
spending each month to educate their children, at both technology.
public and private schools.
7
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
teacher training college. Beyond these requirements, Bridge team while incorporating the latest developments in
looked for individuals with leadership experience in church teaching methods. Other teams were created to facilitate
or other community organizations, good communication improvements by filming lessons, identifying and testing
skills, and a passion for teaching and children. Many were new learning methods and programs, and performing
previously underemployed, working primarily in the quality audits.
informal sector without wage security or benefits.
TECHNOLOGY AND ANALYTICS
ENSURING QUALITY AND In 2011 Bridge deployed smartphones loaded
EFFICIENCY with a custom-developed application that
connects managers to a central cloud-based
Bridge wanted a management structure that would allow server. The app tracks student admissions and billing in
for local-level decision making while providing consistent real-time and serves as a financial management tool for
support and quality in the classroom. It developed a structure the overall academy, including fee payments, expense
that operated at three geographic levels: local, area, and management, and payroll. Two years later Bridge rolled
regional (Figure 2). The structure ensures that everything out tablets for teachers, enabling dynamic publishing of
from logistics to relationship management is covered. teacher guides and real-time data collection to and from
the classroom (Figure 3). Through the use of mobile and
To make certain that teachers were supported other technologies, Bridge has been able to:
academically, Bridge set up a travelling academic field
team to engage with teachers and monitor them in Simplify Operations. Academy Managers are able to
classrooms. The organization’s central academic research focus on teacher support and parent engagement instead
and development team improved lessons based on of administration. For example, to eliminate fraud and
feedback from teachers and from the academic field security risks inherent in collecting cash, Bridge decided
to use the popular M-PESA mobile phone application
available in Kenya to go cashless. Parents pay school
fees either via mobile or by bank deposit and Bridge
Figure 2: Field-based Structure parents can see their payment status update in real time.
In the other countries where it operates, Bridge uses
REGIONAL MANAGER similar cashless payment systems either through mobile
Oversees 100 academies
payments or bank vendors.
• Maintains county-level relationships
with stakeholders
• Oversees recruiting and logistics Ensure Engagement. Bridge knew that their academies
• Coordinates with the central office would only be as strong as the teachers in the classroom.
Ensuring teacher attendance was a key part of that. The
AREA MANAGER
Oversees 10-15 academies teacher tablet rolled out in 2013 allowed Bridge’s central
• Addresses operational Issues team to monitor when the teacher checks in and the
•E ngages with community and pace at which the teacher progresses through lessons,
local government
helping to ensure that teachers are active in the classroom
ACADEMY MANAGER throughout the day. If a teacher fails to check in, Bridge
Manages one academy can send a substitute teacher to ensure minimal loss to
•S
chool leader responsible lesson time.
for overall performance
8
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
Bridge
Central Team
Develops, updates, and
tests lessons and new
approaches
Teachers
Enter results, attendance,
and other metrics into
tablets and upload
to central team
for analysis
Teachers
Download lessons
to tablets using the
Academy Managers’
phone as a hotspot
Students
Assessed using
traditional paper and
pencil tests
9
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
The next step for Bridge • Payment system. Over time, the M-PESA mobile
10
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
Bridge’s expansion to Nigeria was facilitated by a grant In 2015, Bridge graduates in Kenya took the
from U.K.’s Department for International Development nationwide exam for the first time.
(DFID). Through DFID’s Innovation Fund for innovative Approximately 60 percent of the 2,900 students
business models and its Developing Effective Private sitting for the exam passed, demonstrating a 40
Education Nigeria project, Bridge received a grant of percent higher chance of passing the exam than
approximately £3.45 million to share the risks associated the national average. The results showed that
with entry into the Lagos market.⁹ the longer students had been in the Bridge
system the stronger their results. Moreover,
Also in 2015 Bridge entered into an agreement with the Bridge students had a 65 percent higher chance
government of Andhra Pradesh in India. Bridge agreed of being accepted to national secondary schools
to adapt its model in order to meet local needs by in Kenya, and over 100 students were granted
rebuilding and expanding decrepit, closed schools into full four-year scholarships for secondary school.
model community schools. The first nursery and primary
academies opened in June 2016 and include locally A large independent impact evaluation of
oriented activities, such as yoga, in the school routine. Bridge is currently underway, led by a team of
World Bank research experts and independent
Bridge’s first engagement as a school management academics. The evaluation will also look at—and
organization for public schools came in 2016 with the deliver data about—the broader context of
Liberian government. Bridge agreed to partner with the low-cost private schooling.
government in turning around 50 failing public nursery
and primary schools in the 2016-2017 academic year.
The program is part of a pilot initiative to see how such
organizations can help improve education in the West
African nation in partnership with the government. Bridge
will work in existing schools, with existing teachers and
pupils, but will use its own training and lesson delivery
models. The schools will ultimately remain under
government control and will remain free of charge to
students. The government will continue to pay school staff
salaries, while the intervention costs of the partnership
are being funded by philanthropies, including the Mulago
Foundation.
11
IFC INCLUSIVE BUSINESS CASE STUDY | Bridge International Academies
MOVING FORWARD
RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS
© International Finance Corporation 2016. All rights reserved.
The Bridge International Academies of today may not The material in this work is copyrighted. Copying and/or
necessarily be the Bridge of the future. Bridge plans to transmitting portions or all of this work without permission
may be a violation of applicable law. IFC does not guarantee the
continue to innovate and expand and will continue to accuracy, reliability or completeness of the content included in
push toward its goal of reaching millions of children this work, or for the conclusions or judgments described herein,
and accepts no responsibility or liability for any omissions or
across the world. For example, Bridge sees the potential errors (including, without limitation, typographical errors and
to sell resource materials to other schools, to use its technical errors) in the content whatsoever or for reliance
thereon.
teacher training methods for other organizations and
governments, and to enter into additional public-private
partnerships. Bridge is also focused on transitioning
children to secondary school.
ENDNOTES
12