Ed Partners Africa (Visit Website)
Location: Kenya
Sector: Edutech

Education and problems faced in Africa
Studies showed that in Africa, over 70 million children are not enrolled in school. Poverty is the main reason for this. Most children work early in the morning before going to school. Among other reasons for children, deprivation of education is war, gender discrimination, religion and wellbeing.
In the same vein, over 30 million children receive utterly poor education. Also, nearly 40 million children in primary 5 and 6 don’t receive the kind of education required for their levels. Most African countries don’t even meet the SDGs standard. The (SDGs) believe that to be able to compete in an increasingly globalised economy, the completion of secondary schooling is a minimum. Africa as a nation is far from this standard, it is indeed a thing to worry about.
How’s the situation in Kenya
In Kenya, the education sector is faced with a lot of challenges that require immediate action. More than 93 million children of primary and secondary school age are out of school across the region. Not only that, about 15 million of them will never set foot in a classroom.
Among the challenges faced are:
Lack of enough schools, Poverty, lack of adequate facilities, high dropout rate, quality of education, insufficient learning aids, lack of enough teachers and political influence.
Most of the schools in Kenya are government property. Rather than acting in line with the country’s education needs, the government in power acts based on its own interest. Government appoints loyalists as directors instead of qualified personnel and embezzled funds allocated for schools. I never knew corruption existed in Kenya too!
The few private schools that exist are faced with the struggle of accessing funds to provide an enabling environment for quality education. Banks and microfinance institutions do not have products focused on the education sector, hence services are not tailored to the clients found here. Now you know why Ed partners decided to focus on this niche.

The Solution, Ed Partners Africa
The Nairobi-based Ed Partners Africa was founded in 2018 by Lydia Koros and David FitzHerbert, a non-financial institution set on a mission to make quality education accessible and affordable for Africans. It is worthy to note that Ed Partners Africa is the first private-school finance institution in Africa. The institution provides financial support to affordable private schools in Kenya.
Because Ed Partners focuses on private schools only, it has an in-depth insight into the niche. Thus, the solutions provided are market-driven and tailored to private schools only. The financial solutions will be discussed from the basics for proper understanding by their clients. The institution understands and values their client as well, as such the mode of delivery is doorstep. This will help the school to focus on the important aspect of the business.
Accessing the product
Ed Partners Africa has up to 4 products, each tailored to schools based on their capability and eligibility. Allow me to walk you through each of them. But before that, let me name them quickly: Bridge loan, Flexi loan, Super loan, Platinum loan,
Bridge Loan
The features of this product include KES 200,000 – 500,000 – Payback in easy monthly instalments over 36 months, Convenient – doorstep service, Fast processing and simple documentation, Improvements including the purchase of lab equipment, classroom furniture, smart classes, CCTV installation, construction of restrooms, advance for teachers’ salaries, renovations and more.
For you to be eligible for this, your school has to enrol with the ministry of education, should be up to 3years, and must be able to pay a loan instalment on time.
Flexi loan
You’re able to loan from KES 1,000,001 – 2,000,000 – Payback in easy monthly instalments over 60 months – Wide variety of properties accepted as security e.g. Land or logbook – Convenient, doorstep service – Improvements including the purchase of land, computer labs, vehicles such as school buses and vans, infrastructure improvements such as the construction of new classrooms and more.
Let me not bore you with my stories, remember that the higher you go on a mountain, the cooler it becomes. It’s the same with the products here. The more you want to expand, the higher the loan you’re able to acquire. The eligibility process is the same for all of these products.

Application process
The process of application is really easy. When you scroll to the bottom of the products, you would find a form requesting details like your name, email address, phone number, name of your school, loan amount, purpose and location. Immediately the institution receives your information you will receive an email to know what’s next.
Beyond Loans
Beyond loans, Ed Partners Africa offers services to ensure a proper workflow from financial management training, automation, school management training to support on implementing a new curriculum.
At the end of the first half of the year, Ed Partners raised a fund of $1.9million from Acumen, I&P and Zephyr with participation from existing investors.
With the fund, the institution has been able to disburse 1.5 million in loans to 142 schools, which educate 41,000 students. This is indeed a great feat!
In anticipation…
We Hope the institution is able to reach its target to provide quality education to the low-income earners and charge school fees of between $150 and $500 per year. Also, looking forward to providing loans between $2,000 and $70,000 payable up to six years. We implore investors.
Ed Partners has provided an opportunity for parents and guardians to get their children affordable and quality education. We implore them to tap into this benefit. Kindly make use of the opportunity to provide quality and affordable education to children in Kenya and Africa at large.
This mission will also help to develop the economic development of the country enabling it to meet the SDGs standard.