Why Poor Pupils Turn to Non-State Schools Despite Free Primary Education

Children file out of densely packed homes, navigating narrow paths and open drains on their way to class. They walk with purpose, but not toward the government schools that were meant to open doors for them.

According to an Oxfam study on education in Nairobi’s slums, the promise of Free Primary Education (FPE) has never been equal across the city. While public schools remain free in principle, the report found that access is deeply uneven. In the study area, nearly half the pupils attended low-cost private schools, not because families preferred them, but because public alternatives were full, far away,  and practically inaccessible.

The report describes a stark reality: children in informal settlements often reach public school gates only to find the spaces already taken. Overcrowding and long queues have made these schools unattainable for many families living in poverty. The result is a quiet but powerful form of exclusion, one that pushes the poorest children toward fee-paying informal schools built from tin sheets and timber.

These low-cost schools were never meant to replace public education, yet they have become the backbone of learning in the slums. They operate in cramped rooms with limited resources. Teachers are frequently undertrained and underpaid. But for parents who have been turned away from public classrooms, these schools represent the only remaining option.

The Oxfam report notes the heavy consequences of this dependence. School attendance in informal settlements is fragile. Fees, often paid daily or weekly, determine whether a child stays in class or misses days at a time. When a family’s income collapses, even temporarily, children are forced to shift schools or drop out until money can be found. The study identifies this pattern as "high mobility,” a cycle that disrupts learning and keeps children academically unstable.

Meanwhile, beyond the boundaries of the settlements, Nairobi tells a different story. In middle- and high-income neighborhoods, parents choose between public and private schools based on quality and reputation. Oxfam calls this differentiated demand. But in the slums, demand is defined by necessity, not choice.

The report concludes that while FPE removed financial barriers for many Kenyan families, it did not resolve the structural inequalities affecting the urban poor. Public schools remain too few and too distant for the population they are meant to serve. The geography of the city itself has become a deciding factor in whether a child receives free education.

For the children walking through Nairobi’s informal settlements each morning, education is not a guaranteed right, it is a daily negotiation. They pass the gates of public schools built to offer opportunity, only to continue on toward improvised classrooms that require fees their families struggle to pay.

In communities built on resilience, hope remains. But the Oxfam findings make one thing clear: until public education reaches every corner of the city, children in the informal settlements will continue carrying a burden their peers elsewhere do not.