Leisurely drive that gave birth to academy

When Mrs Femy Fazal decided to go for a drive through the posh Milimani Estate in Nakuru town, it never crossed her mind that the brief journey would mark the first step to a venture in education.

And as her husband Mr Hassan Fazal calmly stepped on the brake pedal, the cool drive came to an abrupt end as they pulled up at a vantage point.

There was a school nearby and this caught her attention. There were some children playing on a bushy field in the name of the school pitch. The compound looked neglected with overgrown grass and trees, resembling a small jungle in the middle of the upmarket estate overlooking the scenic Menengai Crater.

Mrs Fazal was not impressed by the environment in which the children were playing as she had a passion for children and excellence in education.
Her husband jokingly challenged her to start a better place for such young learners. But jokes aside, she took up the challenge seriously and started Crater Academy in 2004.

“The place was in a bad shape and the environment was not conducive for learning and since I have a soft spot for education of young children, I took it as a challenge and I approached the owner of the premises and we entered into an agreement. And that is how my dream of starting a school came true,” Mrs Fazal told Money.

She says it was not easy getting new pupils and had to invest heavily in landscaping and renovating the wobbly infrastructure and by the end of the first year she had 15 pupils and the following year the school had 50 pupils.

Currently the school has a population of over 500 pupils as more and more parents make a beeline outside her office seeking a place for their children.

“I introduced Montessori at nursery but the concept was not well known by the parents as they thought it was a system of education which is a preserve of the special children,” says Mrs Fazal who is simply known as Madam Fazal by the school fraternity.

Today Crater Academy is a shining star in the national examination with its candidates securing places in national schools.

No magic for success in this sector

The Sh6 million seed capital her husband injected in the business after securing a loan from Trans National Bank has transformed the institution and is now worth hundreds of millions of shillings.

They had started by renting the premises but in 2006 together with the help of her husband, she bought the more than one-acre land and the buildings.

What is the secret of her success in the increasingly competitive sector?

“There is no magic for success in this sector. What is required is to embrace the open-door policy where teachers and non-teaching staff are free to raise any matter that they feel may be a hindrance to the development of the school,” says Mrs Fazal, 50, who is an alumni of the Star of the Sea High School in Mombasa.

“One must also cultivate a close working relationship with the parents and love their children irrespective of their academic strength because they are the reason we started the school and not money,” adds Mrs Fazal who studied in United Kingdom for her Montessori course.

Asked whether there is money in this sector, she quipped: “It is not what you gather but it is what you scatter that tells the type of life you have lived long after you have gone. What you scatter will show the fruits,” she says.

However, she says she has been ploughing back all the profits to improve the infrastructure and the welfare of the workers. She adds that workers are the key pillars of any institution.

Crater Academy has 40 staff, 25 of whom are teachers.

The mother of two says that running the institution is not an easy task. “The outstanding school fees running into thousands of shillings by some parents some of whom abscond is a major challenge which I am trying to overcome,” says Mrs Fazal.

Another challenge she faces is getting committed teachers ready to sacrifice their time to lay a strong foundation for future leaders.
Despite the challenges, Mrs Fazal believes her hands-on management style has turned the school into a fountain of knowledge.