In the United States, private school is generally a privilege of the rich. But in poorer nations, particularly in Africa and South Asia, families of all social classes send their children to private school. The private schools within reach of the poor, however — usually a single classroom a woman runs in her house — are not a big improvement. But two school systems — Bridge International Academies in Kenya and BRAC in Bangladesh — are offering something different: they are making decent education accessible to the world’s poorest on a giant scale.
Both BRAC and Bridge are large and getting larger. BRAC has more than 1.25 million children in its schools in Bangladesh and six other countries, and it is expanding. Bridge is smaller, with 50,000 children, but it is only four years old, and it is opening a new school in Kenya every 2.5 days and is moving into other countries. BRAC puts its schools mainly in remote rural villages, Bridge in urban slums. They both serve the poor — and serve them relatively well. But that is about all they have in common.
The two school systems have diametrically opposing philosophies, methods and business models. Anyone familiar with the debate in the United States about American education would recognize these polar opposites. Bridge is a for-profit company which draws income solely from school fees; to be profitable it must keep class size at 50 or larger. One of its investors is Pearson, the media and education company whose tests have proven so controversial in New York. Bridge relies on standardization and technology. At 11 a.m. for example, every single second-grade teacher in every Bridge academy will be teaching the exact same lesson, supplied with a word-for-word script from Bridge headquarters delivered by Nook e-reader.