Drawing on DPhil research in 7 African cities, low-cost, non-state schools are providing early years and primary education for the majority of children. They appear to deliver a decent quality of education relative to state schools with much smaller class sizes and, importantly, with teachers turning up for work. However, they depend on parents paying fees of $160 per annum and get no financial support from government. 52% of the schools are run by women. 85% of the schools cannot get loans from banks to expand and there is a $1.8billion unmet demand for finance.

This talk details how low-cost, non-state schools became a phenomenon although largely ignored by official bodies and what role they could play in educating all girls and out of school children to contribute to sustainable economic growth, the diversification of African economies  and address the climate challenge. A new model will be proposed of how partnership with government, civil society and faith based entities can drive better quality education that is affordable. The talk will also consider the important role UK institutions could play in furthering teacher quality across the continent and creating thousands of jobs.

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Peter is an Associate Fellow at Said Business School (SBS), University of Oxford. Peter tutors and teachers on the Impact Investing Programme and Social Finance Programme at SBS, and was awarded his doctorate by the university in 2023. As founder and CEO of Summit Development Group, Peter works with impact investors and financial institutions in emerging economies. Peter has over 25 years of commercial experience in the UK and founded Enterprise Banking Group (Botswana) which invested in banks in Kenya and Rwanda. He has worked for BancABC (Botswana), CDC (now BII), Africa Trading (South Africa), BhS plc and Mazars. Peter is also the director of Bean There Coffee Company (South Africa) which promotes intra-African fair trade in coffee. He is a trustee of Ripple Effect (USA), a Section 503 company promoting rural livelihoods in Africa and of the UK charity Hugh Pilkington Charitable Trust, an endowment that gives scholarships to African tertiary students and supports education of refugees in the Horn of Africa.

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