Nairobi Academy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nairobi Academy is a preparatory and secondary school located in Langata, a suburb outside Nairobi, Kenya, between Karen and the Bomas of Kenya. The school caters to ages 2-18 and follows the British System of education, offering English National Curriculum leading to I.G.C.S.E and A Levels.

1 Leadership
2 Culture
3 History
4 External links

[edit] Leadership

Miss Sushila Bakhda was Headmistress and very successful for nearly twenty years, but was fired in 2001. Since 2001 the Headmistress of Secondary has been Mrs Nina Rebeiro. In 2004 the Headmaster of Prep was fired, and in 2006 the next Headmaster of Prep was fired.

[edit] Culture

The school is known as NA. It has also been called "Bombay Academy" because many students belonged to families from the Indian Subcontinent.

Global Presence
Most NA students end up studying in universities in the UK. A few go to the United States, Canada or Australia. Many return to Nairobi to work at a family business or are joining the thriving financial sector.

[edit] History

Nairobi Academy was founded in 1976 by Frank Bentley, who also founded a school in Mombasa.

In 1987 the former school accountant, Francis Kirugu, bought a 70% share in Nairobi Academy from the founder. Then in 1990 Mr Kirugu bought the remaining 30% share from the Headmistress, Miss Bakhda, who had been the founder’s business partner. In 1995 the owner used school fee income to buy a flower farm, and in 1998 a coffee farm. The planned gymnasium behind the 1995 squash courts building was abandoned, but the concrete base and stumps of steel-reinforced pillars can be seen to this day, at the edge of the compound, beside the collapsed fence and the workers’ latrine opposite Mamba Village.

Pupil numbers at Nairobi Academy have declined since 1997, when there were 470 students. Now there are less than 200. Forty students from Nairobi Academy Secondary started at Premier Academy in September 2006.

Since 1990, all five headmasters and headmistresses of Nairobi Academy who left were fired. Two headmistresses of the Prep were dismissed in the 1990s. In 2001 the long-serving and very successful Headmistress of Secondary, who had been Headmistress of the whole of Nairobi Academy until 2000, was dismissed by the owner. It has been alleged, by a source who has access to the information, that she had been advised by her doctor to take a few weeks off for stress, and that Kirugu then dismissed her on the ground that she was unfit for duty. In April 2004 the Headmaster of Prep was dismissed, on grounds which were disputed. The owner stood in the headmaster’s office while he cleared his belongings and the locks were changed. The owner did not pay his salary, allowances, gratuity or flights. In July 2006 the next Headmaster of Prep was told that his contract would not be renewed. He says that Mr Kirugu objected to the minutes of the Advisory Board meetings, which he wrote as secretary, because the minutes were accurate and showed the way that the owner managed the school. Again the owner avoided paying the head's salary, allowances, gratuity and flights.

Staff salaries were paid late in December 2003 and again in August 2004. Then, for 8 months from July 2005 to February 2006, salaries were paid late and incompletely. It has been alleged, by a source who has access to the information, that Mr Kirugu had used the school fees collected in September 2005 to make loan repayments on his flower farm, and then found that he could not get a loan from the bank to cover the salaries. Considerable hardship was caused to local staff, some having to get loans to pay their rent. But the Headmistress of Secondary, and some expatriates in senior positions, who were in staff accommodation with minimal living costs, remained loyal to Kirugu. Some teachers who left in July 2005 had still not been paid up to date by July 2006, and some today in 2007 say they are still owed money from 2005.