Education is the top priority for Kenyans according to FinAccess Household Survey 2019. Poor households particularly attach high value to educating their children.

Kenyan parents know that when you invest in education, you invest in the future. But that future isn’t cheap.

Our work on the Kenya Financial Diaries made it painfully clear to us that school fees are incredibly expensive for low income families.  The lowest end public schools often ask about KSh 20,000 per year for a single student, when rural household incomes often average around KSh 6,000 per month.

Flexipay is a blended financing concept, designed to help low-income families meet large financing needs, like school fees.

As we trudged through Kivani Secondary School’s third term student attendance records, one absenteeism after another greeted us. Per our analysis in preparation for Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with selected parents and guardians at the school, the average student missed about 13% of class time. I didn’t give it much thought then.