Business Opportunities in Education for Kenya

Education in post colonial Africa remains largely far fetched in terms of accessibility, quality, equity and relevance. This scenario cuts across board right from basic through to higher levels of education. There have been deliberate efforts and initiatives though to address these issues, but to a big extent, they remain unfelt.

In majority African nations the major players in the provision of education services at all levels are Governments through public school systems, Religious organizations and private sector. These initiatives have been boosted variously by western partner states and international organizations like UNICEF, USAID, DFID, JICA, SIDA, DANIDA, EU among other major partners.

There are major strides among some states to provide free universal primary education to all its youth, and countries like Kenya today boast of a well trained and skilled human capital not only across Africa but also in the world. This makes Kenya the largest non-mineral economy in the African continent. It is also able to export its human resource to other countries around the world. Indeed, Countries like Rwanda, Botswana, South Africa and recently southern Sudan have and continue to benefit immensely from the expertise of Kenyan professionals working there.

However, there are still major challenges in the education delivery systems to most of the populations.

Besides the traditional school education which has its good share in the continent, forward thinking investors should focus on some of these growth opportunities on education in Africa:

·        Sports-establish sports academies for various sporting disciplines. This is a purely virgin area which has not got much attention in the past.  Going by the number of sports superstars from Africa being signed in various European clubs, it is evident that much can be done here and it won’t disappoint.

·        Performing Arts and Music Academy-It’s a pity that most aspiring artists from Africa have to travel to Britain and America to get training in these fields.

·        Girl Child Education-I can bet anything specifically targeted on the girl child is big business especially from the marginalized communities.

·        Languages-For heavens sake start a language school for Chinese, and you will thank me for it.

·        Reproductive Health-More people are becoming aware of their selves, and this is big