Low-fee private schools in Kenya: Interrogating notions of inclusion and exclusion

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday II)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Inclusion and social justice in education for marginalized children

Proposal

The rise in non-state providers (NSP) in education in the Global South has been highly debated and polarized, with diverse PPP (public private partnership) configurations actively promoted by bilateral and multilateral organizations. While churches and other religious communities have had a long history of providing education and social services in many countries, the emergence of a newer, largely for-profit non-state sector in education is troubling. While this trend is embraced by some as providing choice in schooling, critics, on the other hand express concern that non-state providers may be usurping the role of state as primary providers of basic education and may in fact be excluding marginalized communities, particularly the poorest of the poor. More recently, the growth of a largely for-profit low-fee school sector targeting marginalized segments of the society has also drawn considerable attention and attracted multiple corporate investors in many countries in the Global South, more notably the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund (PALF) that is very aggressively investing in expanding the low-fee private sector across Asia and Africa.
While there has been much contentious debate around the role of low-fee private schools, in particular, in many developing countries, what has been less examined in this context is to what extent these schools engage with local communities and in doing so potentially include those who may be excluded from the state school system for a variety of reasons. This presentation seeks to explore the nuanced and oftentimes overlooked ways in which low-fees schools may be playing in education of the marginalized. I propose to understand the full impact and influence of these schools we need new tools and ways to interrogate notions of inclusion and exclusion. Based on field work with 34 low-fee schools in Kenya, I use empirical data to show how in many cases, low-fee schools may be for some the only option for schooling. Using social capital theory of inclusion and exclusion as the framework, qualitative interviews with school proprietors, teachers and parents demonstrate how low-fees schools offer a flexibility of admission not possible in state schools. Additionally low-fee schools are able to build social capital ties with local communities in ways that state schools cannot. Further, these schools are sometimes able to accommodate for gender and learning disabilities where the state schools may be challenged to. While it is recognized that low-fees schools may in some cases exacerbate inequalities, it is also equally pertinent to also acknowledge ways they are uniquely positioned to reach the communities they serve.
As we contemplate the post-2015 era in global education, this presentation makes a concrete contribution in deepening our understanding of the role non-state providers are playing in the provision and sustainability of education. In particular where non-state provision is outside the purview of the state regulation it is imperative to consider how these schools may contribute to social cohesion through inclusion of the excluded.

Author

• Malini Sivasubramaniam, University of Toronto