Bridge International Academies is a company which provides for-profit education to children in India, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. It was started in 2008, and calls itself a "social enterprise". By 2022, Bridge had around 750,000 students in its schools. , it is the world's largest for-profit primary education chain. Its parent company is NewGlobe Schools, Inc.
History
Shannon May, her husband Jay Kimmelman, and Phil Frei, a former roommate of Kimmelman's co-founded Bridge International Academies and opened the first school in Nairobi, Kenya in 2008. By 2022, Bridge had around 750,000 students in its schools. , Bridge has schools in Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India in addition to Kenya, and is the world's largest for-profit primary education chain.
Bridge opened a London, UK office.
In 2016, Bridge opened six schools in Andhra Pradesh, India in a partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh to use disused school buildings to create Bridge schools.
Bridge won the 2016 Global Shared Value award in Kenya.
In 2016, Bridge expanded to Liberia as part of the Liberian Education Advancement Program (LEAP) that selected eight private companies to take over 93 public schools. Bridge started with running 23 schools, and , it runs about 360 of 487 LEAP schools.
Costs for bridge schools net losses and revenues are estimated and are not released by the firm, with losses in 2016 estimated $12m a year and with a total revenue of $16m / year.
In 2017, the number of Bridge academies in Lagos, Nigeria increased. Bridge removed pupils after taking control of schools with large class sizes, and removed 74% of incumbent teachers from their schools.
Legal issues
In November 2014, the Busia County, Kenya education board decided to close ten Bridge schools in the county for their substandard safety and accountability records. Upon moving to enforce the decision in 2016, Bridge sued the board and its director on procedural grounds. In February 2017, the High Court in Busia ruled in favor of the board.
In May 2016, Bridge accused Curtis Riep, a University of Alberta PhD candidate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies, of trespassing and impersonating its staff. Riep was in Uganda to research Bridge for a study commissioned by Education International and was arrested by Ugandan police immediately after arriving for an interview with two Bridge executives. Bridge had put ads in the local newspaper asking people to notify police if they saw Riep. Riep was able to show Ugandan police that he had signed the visitor logs at Bridge facilities under his own name and was released the following day. Riep and the Ugandan teacher's federation said that Bridge had arranged the detention to stop his research. In December, Bridge filed a complaint with the University of Alberta claiming ethical violations. Riep ultimately earned his doctorate from the University in 2021.
In November 2016, the High Court of Uganda ruled that the national government could close the 63 Bridge schools in the country because they were operating without required licenses. Bridge is appealing the order, and the schools remain open .
In March 2017, Bridge sued the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and Wilson Sossion, its secretary general, for defamation over its publication of a 2016 report critical of Bridge's practices in the country. In February 2018, the Kenyan High Court dismissed an application for an interim injunction barring KNUT and its leadership from criticizing Bridge.
Sexual misconduct and safety incidents in Kenya
In 2015, a Bridge teacher in Mombasa was convicted of cutting a seven-year-old student's genitals in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison by the High Court.
According to a March 2023 report by The Intercept, in 2016 a teacher at a Bridge school in the Mukuru slums of Nairobi had sexually assaulted at least 11 girls between the ages of 10 and 14 since at least 2015. The teacher in question admitted his guilt to school staff but was never reported to police or Bridge executives by the academy manager. A Bridge spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the incident had occurred and Bridge warned the outlet about potential legal action if the story was published. In 2017, a teacher from another school in Mukuru was arrested for allegedly sexually harassing female students.