The cost of private secondary education in Kenya has spiralled to levels that even well-paid professionals describe as unsustainable, with fees at the country’s most prestigious institutions now exceeding Ksh 600,000 per academic year — a figure that surpasses the annual gross earnings of many civil servants and teachers whose children these schools once served.
A survey conducted by the Kenya Parents Association (KPA) across 45 private schools in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu between April and June 2026 found that average boarding fees at top-tier private secondary schools rose by 18 per cent in 2025 alone, outpacing Kenya’s official inflation rate of 6.4 per cent by a wide margin. At the upper end of the market — schools offering the British A-Level, International Baccalaureate, or the American AP curriculum — annual fees routinely exceed Ksh 700,000 when activity fees, uniform costs, and compulsory levies are included.
The Middle Class Squeeze
KPA Chairperson Nicholas Maiyo has written to Education Cabinet Secretary Julius Ogamba demanding that the Ministry of Education invoke Section 34 of the Basic Education Act to gazette a fee review framework for private schools. “We are not asking the government to run private schools,” Maiyo said at a press conference held outside parliament buildings in Nairobi. “We are asking it to ensure that the private education sector does not operate as an unregulated cartel that extracts rents from families who have no alternative.”
The KPA’s data reveals a troubling pattern: fees at the top 20 private schools have more than doubled in real terms since 2019, driven by a combination of post-pandemic infrastructure investment, the cost of recruiting internationally certified teachers, currency depreciation making imported learning materials more expensive, and, critics argue, simple market exploitation of a captive clientele.
For many families, the calculation has become brutal. David Kariuki, a senior manager at a Nairobi-based logistics firm earning Ksh 180,000 a month, told ZaKenya.com that he and his wife collectively spend Ksh 1.2 million a year to keep two children in private school. “We have stopped saving for retirement. We have stopped taking family holidays. We are essentially living to pay school fees,” he said. “And the school has just announced a further 12 per cent increase for January 2027.”
Schools Defend Costs, Cite Global Standards
Private school proprietors counter that the figures reflect genuine operational costs rather than profiteering. The Kenya Association of Private Schools (KAPS) argues that rising teacher salaries — necessary to retain staff who could otherwise seek positions in the Gulf or British independent sector — along with technology upgrades mandated by the CBC transition and the cost of maintaining the kind of sporting and creative facilities that parents demand, leave little room for fee reductions.
“Our parents choose us because we offer results and an environment that public schools cannot currently match,” said the principal of one prominent Nairobi school, who asked not to be named. “If the government wants fees to come down, the fastest route is to invest in public schools so that parents have a genuine alternative.”
That argument cuts little ice with parents who feel trapped. Several families ZaKenya.com spoke to had pulled children from private schools in the past 18 months, only to find that nearby national schools were overcrowded following the influx of the CBC Junior Secondary cohort and operating under significant resource pressure due to the government’s IMF-linked austerity commitments.
Political Pressure Mounts
The fees crisis has acquired a political dimension as the 2027 general election approaches. Several opposition MPs have tabled a Private Educational Institutions (Fee Regulation) Bill that would require all private schools to publish audited fee justifications and obtain Ministry approval for any annual increase exceeding five per cent above the consumer price index. The bill is currently before the Education Committee.
Cabinet Secretary Ogamba has been non-committal, saying only that “the Ministry is studying all legislative options” while insisting that the government’s primary focus remains strengthening the public school system. For the thousands of parents currently receiving fee increment notices for the 2027 academic year, that answer is unlikely to suffice.
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