Bridge International Academies

Bridge opened a London, UK office and was awarded one of six World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Awards for innovation in education.[9]

In 2016, Bridge opened six schools in Andhra Pradesh, India in a partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh to use disused school buildings to create Bridge schools.[10]

Bridge won the Global Shared Value award for an “outstanding record in re-conceiving education for a new market” in Kenya over 2016.[11]

Costs for bridge schools net losses and revenues are estimated and are not released by the firm, with losses in 2016 estimated $12m a year and with a total revenue of $16m / year.[12]

In 2017, the number of Bridge academies in Lagos, Nigeria increased. Bridge removed pupils after taking control of schools with large class sizes, and removed 74% of incumbent teachers from their schools.[13] The third year of KCPE results were published with Bridge pupils outperforming their peers by 10 percentage points.

In 2018, Bridge pupils took part in Ugandan primary school exams for the first time and 100% of Bridge pupils passed.

In 2020, for the third year, pupils who sat the Ugandan Primary Leaving Examination (PLE) outperformed the nationwide average.[14]

In March 2021, Bridge pupils entered the Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) for a sixth year. These were the 2020 KCPE exams, delayed from November 2020 because of the impact of the Covid pandemic. More than 2,700 girls and boys sat the exams. Bridge Kenya pupils sitting the KCPE scored an average of 21 points higher than pupils nationally, the highest in Bridge Kenya history. For the sixth year in succession, Bridge Kenya pupils outperformed the national average.

Bridge's approach uses a central team in each country to prepare content and monitor student progress. Bridge equips its teachers with a tablet onto which they download daily lesson plans and teacher guides up to two weeks in advance.[7]

• In 2012, Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship for Outstanding Small and Growing Business Award by the African Leadership Network.[17]
• In 2014, co-founders Jay Kimmelman and Shannon May shared the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurs of the Year Award 2014.[18]
• In addition to both being named on the CNBC Next List 2014.[19]
• In 2015, WISE (World Innovation Summit in Education) Award[9]
• Economist Innovation Award[20]
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation Development Impact Award[21]
• Fast Company World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies[22]
• Featured in a report by the Brookings Institution, Center for Universal Education entitled Millions learning: Scaling up quality education in developing countries.[23]
• African Business Employer of Choice Award 2018[24]
• ACQ5 Award: Education Company of the Year (Africa)[25]

Shannon May was listed by the World Economic Forum at one of their 15 Women Changing the World.[26] In 2018, she was awarded a CEO Today, Business Women of the Year Award.[27]

In 2015, Jay Kimmelman was listed on the Goldman Sachs 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs.[28] In 2018, he was awarded an ACQ5 Gamechanger of the Year Award (Education; Africa).[25]

Bridge has received criticism from different sources, including teaching unions and education rights groups. Education groups have pushed back on Bridge as using a model that stifles creativity, innovation, and goes against educational research in developed countries.[29][30] Critics have been accused of putting 'ideology before education'.[31]

After the president of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim praised Bridge Schools in 2015, there was a large push-back from organisations in Kenya and Uganda, disagreeing with his statement. They expressed deep concern over the global financial institution's investment in a chain of private primary schools targeting poor families in Kenya and Uganda and called on the institution to support free universal education instead.[32]

Others have argued that their model, focused on guided instruction, actually enhances creativity similar to the way musicians use sheet music or actors have scripts.[33]

The company has come under criticism from aid agencies and civil rights groups, including ActionAid and Education for All, for being detrimental to the plan of offering a “universal, free and compulsory basic education” to all children.[34] Education International (EI), a global group of teachers’ unions, has criticised Bridge for its for-profit model being “morally wrong.” [35]

Global Justice Now has criticised Bridge by suggesting that “the cost per student at just $6 dollars a month” is misleading. It states that 'the suggestion that $6 is an acceptable amount of money for poor households to pay reveals a profound lack of understanding of the reality of the lives of the poorest”. Global Justice Now calculated that for half their populations, the $6 per month per child it would cost to send [36] three primary school age children to a Bridge Academy, is equal to at least a quarter of their monthly income. Many families already struggle to provide three meals a day to their children. It has also claimed that the real total cost of sending one child to a Bridge school is between $9 and $13 a month, and up to $20 when including school meals.[37]

Bridge has received funding from a number of investors,[38] including:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation[39]
• Commonwealth Development Corporation[40]
• Department for International Development
• International Finance Corporation
• Kholsa Ventures[41]
• New Enterprise Associates[42]
• Omidyar Network[43]
• Overseas Private Investment Corporation[44]
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
• Pershing Square Foundation[45]