Observations of private schools in Nairobi

Simply put, finding an appropriate school in Nairobi is a challenge.  There are schools everywhere, it seems like there are at least 2 per every square kilometer.  All parents have their own "barometer" for tolerance and expectations. Each parent must choose what is best for their child/family. What is good for me may not be what any parent wants. This blog is intended to share my own personal observations and experiences with the hope of helping parents make informed decisions for their children.

Our child’s first school in Kenya [to be referred as School D]

When I first interviewed the director she explained the emphasis of creativity, exploration, individuality.  All of which I know is important for a toddler. We were desperate to find a school that had an opening, was near home, and where our child could develop socially with children her own age. It was okay to be flexible with the academics that late in the year. After all we had already wasted two months searching for a place to live.  So after finding that the highly rated schools  we were interested in had no available space midyear and no response from the school we had chosen we went with an individual recommendation given to me.  Big mistake. Do your research, read recommendations, school newsletters, parent notes, visit and ask lots of questions.

A few general comments:

•  Most schools are private schools catering to parents looking for something that will help children      accelerate and be accepted into the top schools or be able to smoothly transition to schools in the international arena.  
• I do not know whether or not schools that receive certification are monitored. I do know that there is an application process and fee involved.
• There does appear to be private school organization to which most schools belong. Again, I do not know what professional development, support or guidance is provided.
• Many schools have waiting lists which can require months or years.
• Most schools have application fees. 
• Some of the schools have tuition deposits that are not refundable.
• Many schools have transportation available for a fee. 
• Many of the private schools follow internationally popular programs.
• I met some very nice committed people working at private schools. One director actually asked me what other schools I would be visiting and made some additional recommendations. His parting words were, "I know that every parent must make their own decision and this may or may not be your match. Good luck."  Now that is a confident and professional administrator. He was right the school he administers is not my match but I don't doubt that he is doing a good job as a leader and administrator.

A few general experiences:

I have had school directors that do not answer the phone and even had one say she tends to forget it at home and giggled when a month later she finally returned my call. I guess she didn’t understand the concept of having a reliable phone available at the school where there are children and emergencies may arise. 

Another director who I called for follow up questions regarding her school never called back. Someone gave me the number to her other school in Karen so I tried that number. Instead of getting her I got another person who suggested I email or text her. Well I tried both and never received a message in return.
 

As for School D during one of my child’s flu episodes, I called the school for three days (knowing there is no school secretary and that maybe I was just missing the director or teacher in charge of answering the phone) to inform them what was going on but there was no answer.  When we returned the director said there was something wrong with the phone and a new one was being purchased.  Why would a school director depend on one phone in a building full of children?

Asking a school if the staff has received TB testing and whether they have been clear to work with children is an important question. However, some schools don’t believe it is necessary. One director said she could have staff tested if I wanted it. I believe she was missing the point; after all it is not about what I want but what is safe for all the children in her school.

When I asked about the degrees and experience most directors said their staff had appropriate certification but some including School D couldn’t give me details about their staff experience. Since then I have learned that neither the director nor the teacher she relies on the most has a teaching certificate. I have met with dozens of school administrators and any one of them with more than 4 teachers could have said exactly what their staff experiences and degrees were.

Communication:

There are some schools that provide newsletters, give syllabuses for the term, send emails and or set up parent meetings to keep parents informed of their children’s progress. However, my experiences at School D was newsletters that came sporadically, provided the director’s parenting guidance (basically telling parents how they should raise their children) and quoting articles that reinforce her education program and school philosophy as it compares to Finland’s education. Unfortunately, the director neglected to tell parents that though Finland ranks number one in the world with a program that provides teachers with freedom to choose and be creative in their classes, Finland’s program is strengthened by teachers that must have a Education Master’s Degree, receive ongoing support including a new focus on professional development and are provided with educational materials appropriate for their children.  Yes, communicating with this director was always interesting. I appreciate an administrator with etiquette and concern for her students’ family i.e. “how is the family?”, but when every encounter seeks to deviate away from anything to do with the school or with the educational progress of one’s child, one cannot help but wonder why there is never any discussion about what goes on in the school.

For a parent to speak to a school administrator about the school and the administrator to say things such as, “we expect children to eat what is given to them because many children especially children from ___ are spoiled and have their parents make special meals for them”: or to say that “children from___ tend to have nanny’s who do everything for them and the children just wait to be waited on” is not only disrespectful to the family’s individual being but also to their culture, traditions, and family dynamics.  It is racism and how that could be overlooked by a school administrator with an international student body is beyond my comprehension. It also makes me wonder if this particular administrator has an issue with families from particular countries.

Hygiene:

Water is a basic requirement in any school I have been to, except here. School D has been open for over 30 years and yet it never occurred to the director that it is not okay to only have water 3 days per week. She thought it was ok to have a water barrel with a spicket in the playground. I guess it never occurred to her that preschoolers won’t always walk straight from the bathroom inside the building through the hall and through a classroom to wash their hands without getting distracted or touching anything. When I dropped off information on universal precautions for schools, she simply laughed it off as us ___ being so overly concerned with cleanliness. I decided to mention the water issue to a few Kenyan friends and pediatricians. They each looked disgusted and shocked.  I guess hygiene IS a universal concern.

I understand that children can be wasteful but toddlers/preschoolers cannot learn toileting skills if there is neither toilet paper nor soap in the bathroom. Keeping the toilet paper in a teacher’s desk is not okay. Soap that is kept only by some teachers is not okay. While staff may take children to the bathroom, children do not always receive assistance; therefore, children do not always receive toilet paper or soap to wash hands. This is another one of those problems I encountered in several schools I visited.

Meals at the preschool level are essential for teaching social skills, manners, hygiene. At School D assistants and teachers feed students with their hands. While eating Ugali with your hands is okay, it is not okay when someone else is feeding more than one child while coming in contact with various children’s saliva and or snot coming out of some children’s noses. Oh, and by the way the adults don’t wear gloves, don’t wash their hands between children and sometimes feed themselves while feeding the students. Aside from the feeding with hands School D has children eat on floor mats. Now I love to have a picnic but preschoolers are suppose to be learning how to eat at a table. I want my child to learn table manners, how to use silverware and how to eat different foods at the table. 

Curriculum:

Curriculum at the preschool level is about exposure. It doesn’t mean children must complete academic class work all day or be drilled. It does mean that the adults must provide activities, materials, and an environment that stimulates learning. My child’s class at School D has language arts or math twice a week because the rest of the week is scheduled around the extra-curricular activities that some children participate in, once a week some children go to swimming and when they leave, the students who remain behind are placed with one teacher who may or may not be their teacher and thus there really are no structured learning activities. In fact, the whole school “schedule” revolves around the extracurricular activities that occur during school hours and for which some parents pay additional fees i.e. martial arts, ballet, swimming, computer, etc. The funny thing is that the extracurricular activities provided during the school hours leaves some students whose parents may not have purchased the activity stuck with “filler” activities that are generalized for more than one class.

Indeed our child’s first class in Nairobi lacked many of things a parent would expect to see in a rich learning environment i.e.no color cards or chart, no shapes cards or chart, no alphabet, no calendar in the class and educational toys limited if not existent e.g. building shapes that are incomplete thus can’t really be used for building, stuffed animals that are sitting dusty when you enter the school, and a wooden train set that is the highlight of activities not for one class but for the whole school.

While my experiences relate to the early years, the principles are the same. Parents looking at curriculum for higher grade levels should expect well planned lessons; a rich learning environment; teachers who are enthusiastic and committed to modifying their lessons based on their students; and results showing student success when they leave the school. It is sad that a child must have private tutoring paid by the parent when the child is not provided appropriate instruction and/or intervention at school. Worse case is the parents who take their children to a higher grade level school only to find that their child fails entry tests because of basic or routine skills that should have been taught by the current or previous school. If a school says that their students transition to a higher level school with success, I suggest you call the school and ask.

It is easy to overlook a simple question... what happens if my child is ahead or having difficulty in class? The last thing a parent should expect to hear is "we don't want children to move ahead  because otherwise when their class is taught a new concept, lesson, skill the child will be bored. Instead we want students to learn together and be excited together." I happen to believe that a school must challenge a student who has mastered a skill and that no matter what needs to be taught, instruction can and should be interesting and exciting.I also think that children who accelerate in certain areas sometimes require repetition, practice, skill refinement. As for children with difficulties, I also believe that children go to schools where the adult is the expert who is paid to be creative, flexible and accommodating depending on his/her students.

Leadership:

Teacher supervision is a must no matter what level because it allows the teacher to receive constructive criticism and training as needed. For the administrator it ensures that the school is providing what is sold to the parents i.e. a good education for their children. After observing a lesson at School D where the teacher had a group of four children painting while the assistant monitored children beading, I realized they needed help. Children finished their work and waited up to 15 minutes before anyone told them what to do with a string of beads. Eventually students began roaming. The teacher began giving some guidance about what the beaded strings could be used for but only after half the students assigned to the assistant wandered around the room on their own. I spoke with both the teacher and assistant and asked if maybe I could ask the director if she would like me to read to classes or do lessons while teachers had the opportunity to observe each other or her. Both the teacher and assistant were exited to get guidance and training. I was hoping the director would get a chance to observe and provide guidance and training to her teachers. The director’s response was, “I want you to teach the lessons to  ... [she gave me two classes] and I will ask the teachers what they learned but I don’t want you in my class.”  I was shocked. Fine, don’t let me enter your class but please go see what your teachers are doing or let them observe each other and talk about what they are all doing. Any other principal would welcome an opportunity to observe their staff and give them feedback, guidance, technical assistance, if they had never had the opportunity. So, although I didn’t know the kids, was not given any materials or guidance on what is suppose to be the focus of instruction or even learning, I asked the teachers what they wanted me to do and created materials and simple lessons with games that they could replicate.  I spend hours cutting, pasting and creating lesson plans that said exactly what was being done and why.  The teachers were kind and received the information with gratitude. The director kept thanking me but always said, “It is just different” in other words, we can continue to do things as usual.

Teacher observation is also a means to avoid inappropriate teacher behavior such as spanking. How can an administrator guarantee that teachers follow strict discipline policies that do not include hitting if no one ever observes them?

At School D, students begin arriving at 8 am at which time they go out and play. Teachers begin arriving any time between 8:15 and 10:00 am. On rainy days it may be worse. Apparently, living far away or having personal duties at home on a daily basis is okay for the director. In the afternoon, the class teacher leaves at 1 or 1:30 depending on which day because not all teachers are expected to stay the whole day. As for the supervisor, she arrives by 7:30 am to avoid the traffic but leaves every day promptly by 1 pm. That seems fine but there is no secretary and the lead teacher has students of her own. When parents are paying a private school you would expect that the education program begins when the child arrives and ends when the child leaves thus the school staff must all be present and accounted for during the entirety of the school day.

While creativity, play time and certain level of freedom is important, paying for a child to attend a school where 2/3 of the day is free play outside is not exactly what I had hoped would be provided. Play time can be a time to learn but it requires a certain level of planning and structure. To the child it should appear as mere fun and games but to the professional every minute can be an opportunity to learn.

I guess I now realize why teachers don’t bother to arrive before students arrive or stay until their students leave. I have been told that three teachers’ salaries at School D receive no more than 15,000ksh per month while one teacher receives 40,000ksh per month. It is said that the director will start new teachers as low as 7,000ksh.  Other staff have worked in the school for more than 20 years are still receiving less than 8,000ksh per month. If the school fee for two students basically pays for teachers’ salary, then what comes o mind is irresponsibility to the children, the parents, and the community.

Staff student ratio:

Visiting private schools was enlightening when it comes to ratio. One of the schools was so crowded and had so many possible hiding areas that I immediately crossed it off my list. School D appeared to have a fairly common ratio in Kenya but when it came to activities, including extracurricular activities the ratio was huge. The whole school does music together crammed in one classroom while all the children sit on the floor and the teachers sit on the edges singing and trying to maintain children’s attention while the director plays the piano. As I observed the children, I noticed that some children seemed to want to sing but didn’t know the words and the staff was too far or the child was too crammed in the center to be able to get some guidance. While the martial arts class was a paid extracurricular activity for which our child stayed after school to participate I found that every time I went to pick her up, she wasn’t participating and the teacher in charge of the afternoon never really knew where she might be.  Then again, almost every day when I picked up our child no one knew where to look. The staff would look at each other and then begin looking. It seems like I was always the one to find her on the side of the building or in one of the play houses with no adult supervision.

Materials:

At School D it is claimed that the teachers do not receive very much.  One teacher received a roll of white ditto paper which she cut to size depending on what she was doing with the children. Given that this is a school where people pay for their children to get an education and teachers only claim to receive about 15,000 KSH you would think there was enough money for decent materials. It isn’t as if there were texts or an abundance of books. In fact when we went home for the holidays the director asked if I would pick up some used books for her. I agreed, asked how much she wanted to spend and then made arrangements via one of my close friends to get a suitcase of books for free. My family and I drove an hour to get the books and I charged the director only for the extra luggage. I did it because I figured our child would have additional books available but when I arrived and asked the staff about their “new books” they informed me they never saw the books.

What about playground equipment? School D has a huge sand pit which the children love, probably because that is where they are encouraged to play. Neither the teachers nor assistants place a foot inside.  Children including children less than 2 years play on their own in the sand with minimum adult supervision. As for playground equipment? When I first arrived my instructions to staff related to one specific slide was ‘do not let my child on that slide.’ The staff’s reaction “no one has ever complained and no one has ever gotten hurt.”  

I later learned from other parents how several children have had injuries on the playground equipment. I am amazed that safety related issues have not been taken care of and that the response to any concerns from parents always leads back to “no one has ever complained” or “we haven’t had any problem.”  I wonder how much will be risked before something serious happens. 

This picture of School D shows unsafe playground equipment i.e.slides and swing platforms made of concrete protruding out of the sand.. There are several possible ways to fix these safety concerns but no effort has been made to correct the problem.

So what do you do when searching for the right school? What do you look for? What questions do you ask? Below is my list of questions that I asked hoping to get the right school. As I have gained experience and recognition that nothing is a given, I have added to the list. Good luck on your search and the adventures that are bound to come.

Researching Schools – parent questions

ASK / RESEARCH	SCHOOL
Back up generator
Back up water
Bottled drinking water
Curriculum
philosophy
materials
routine schedule
test results/transition success
Discipline - what, how, who
Grounds supervision - security, other
Hygiene
food preparation / serving
soap in bathrooms
towels (individual student, paper)
running water for sinks / toilets
Lunch menu
Parent involvement
communication (school vs. class)
student progress
parent committee
Play equipment safety
Professional development teachers
Respond to calls - phones
Safety
Emergency procedures
First Aid Training / minor interventions
Student health issues
Staff certification
Staff student ratio
Staff supervision
Substitute teachers?
Teacher Assistant training