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Ed Partners

Ed-Partners-Africa

Providing loans to low-fee private schools to improve infrastructure and services

  • Company
  • Education
  • East Africa
  • 2021
  • Active

The challenge

Kenya’s approximately 50,000 private schools educate four million students, but 75% of third grade students have not achieved minimum reading proficiency and more than 40% of 19-20 year olds have not met basic literacy levels. Low-fee private schools lack access to formal credit mechanisms – 80% have never accessed a bank loan – and the resources to invest in school infrastructure.

The innovation

Ed Partners developed the first non-banking financial tool to serve low-fee, affordable private schools, providing them access to credit to expand classrooms, purchase school buses, build sanitation facilities, and more. Through school-focused lending and a hub-and-spoke approach where relationship managers work closely with school leadership, Ed Partners seeks to close the credit gap for low-fee private schools that serve low-income populations.

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