Abstract

The Makini School in Nairobi, Kenya is one of Kenya's most successful private schools. Mrs. Mary Okelo founded the school in 1978 with eight students in her own home. Over the next 24 years, the school grew to over 2,000 students spread over five different locations. This case will discuss how Mrs. Okelo was prescient in perceiving and then meeting an unmet market need for quality private education. It will discuss the challenges she had to overcome as well as the key factors that made the business a success. Particular attention will be paid to the period 1996-2000 when an expansion of the school into the secondary market, the accompanying assumption of much more debt, and a suddenly weakening economy endangered the entire business. The case will end with a discussion of the challenges going forward involving consolidating the business and succession planning.

The Managers in International Development Initiative (MIDI) helped coordinate the research trip which produced a series of cases.

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Citation

Bauer, Andrew, Frederick Brust, and Joshua Hubbert. "Expanding Private Education in Kenya: Mary Okelo and the Makini Schools." Chazen Web Journal of International Business (Fall 2002). http://www.gsb.columbia.edu/journals/files/chazen/Kenya_Makini.pdf.

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