Madaraka Primary School Lang'ata · Nairobi Enrol a child
Madaraka pupils in maroon jumpers and white collars standing at morning assembly, one boy saluting during the anthem.

Free to attend Public day school · Madaraka Estate, Lang'ata

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Madaraka Primary is a public day school on Keri Road, in the estate it was built to serve. Every teacher here is trained and employed by the Teachers Service Commission, the buildings were renovated in 2024, and tuition costs a family nothing.

How to enrol a child What we teach
1973Teaching this estate since the estate itself was new
KES 0Tuition. Free primary education, as the law provides
TSCEvery teacher trained and on the national roll

Who we are

A government school in the middle of the estate it belongs to.

Madaraka Primary is a mixed day school — boys and girls, no boarding — registered with the Ministry of Education and run with a Board of Management and a parents' association. It sits on Keri Road, a few minutes from the Madaraka roundabout, on the ground between Nairobi West and Lang'ata Road.

Two pupils in maroon jumpers sharing an open exercise book at a desk, heads bent over the page.
Sharing a text, upper primary

Teaching

Taught by people who trained for it.

Every teacher on this staff is trained and employed by the Teachers Service Commission. That is not a small thing. It means a qualified professional in front of every class, on the national payroll and answerable to a national standard — which is most of the difference between a school that works and one that does not.

Madaraka is also a registered examination centre, so learners sit their national assessments on their own compound rather than travelling to another school for them.

Public record

MadarakaNoun · Kiswahili

Self-governance. Self-rule. The responsibility a person carries for themselves. Kenya marks it on the first of June.

Where the name comes from

The estate was named for it in 1973. So was the school.

Madaraka Estate opened on 1 June 1973 — Madaraka Day — built by the City Council of Nairobi for families who worked in the city. The school went up alongside it, and it has taught the children of this estate ever since.

The name has turned out to be a fair description of the job. We are trying to raise children who can govern themselves: who read closely, argue honestly, finish what they start, and can be trusted with something before anyone is watching.

Madaraka Estate's opening date and its construction by the City Council of Nairobi are a matter of public record. The school's own founding year is not published anywhere we could find; it is described publicly as having been built in the 1970s.
1973Madaraka Estate opened on Madaraka Day; the school followed
9Grades taught, Grade 1 through junior school Grade 9
KES 0Tuition, under Kenya's free primary education policy
100%Of the teaching staff trained and TSC-employed

Learning

Nine years, on one compound, under one curriculum.

Kenya's Competency-Based Education runs a child from Grade 1 to Grade 9 before senior school, and junior school sits inside the primary school rather than somewhere else. Here is the whole path, and where we are on it.

Grades 1–3

Lower primary

Reading, number and the habit of school. Literacy in English and Kiswahili, mathematics, environmental activities, creative arts and movement.

Grades 4–6

Upper primary

Subjects separate out — mathematics, English, Kiswahili, science and technology, social studies, agriculture, creative arts and religious education.

KPSEA at Grade 6
Grades 7–9

Junior school

Nine learning areas, the same for every learner in the country — no pathway choices yet, and a lighter week than before at thirty-five lessons.

KJSEA at Grade 9
Grade 10 onward

Senior school

Learners leave us for a senior school placed on their Grade 9 result, choosing STEM, Social Sciences, or Arts & Sports Science.

The structure above is Kenya's national one, set by the Ministry of Education and KICD, not a description of anything unusual about this school. Whether junior school is currently running on this compound is one of the details to confirm with the office.
What a week actually looks like

Beyond the timetable

Connected before most schools in this city.

Madaraka was among the first Nairobi schools joined to KENET's Nairobi Schools Fibre Connectivity Project — it heads the published schedule of connected schools. Digital literacy is a learning area in its own right under the national curriculum, and a school that already has a line into it starts from further along than one that does not.

KENET publishes the schedule of schools connected under the Nairobi Schools Fibre Connectivity Project; Madaraka Primary School is listed first on it. The schedule is not dated to the current year — the office can say what the connection supports today.
Two boys in maroon jumpers working together at a laptop in a classroom.
Digital literacy
No. 1On the list

Life at school

The day does not stop at the last lesson.

Games on the field, choir and drama, scouts, the reading corner, and a hot lunch for the learners on the feeding programme. Tap any photograph to open it.

Pupils in navy uniform holding hands in a wide circle on a school lawn, with classroom blocks behind them.
Games on the field, most afternoons
Two boys running for the ball during a football match on a bare pitch.
Football
A young footballer with both arms raised, celebrating a goal on a sunny pitch.
Sports day
Pupils in maroon jumpers washing their hands at the outdoor trough before lunch.
Before lunch
A group of girls in maroon jumpers and white collars laughing together outside a classroom.
Break
Young children in maroon jumpers at work in a bright classroom hung with charts and their own drawings.
Lower primary
Two Madaraka pupils in maroon jumpers smiling closely at the camera.
Ours
A pupil in a maroon jumper, seen from behind, writing on the classroom blackboard.
At the board
Girls in maroon jumpers and white collars smiling at their desks during a lesson.
Grade 5
A pupil in school uniform walking to school along an estate lane, seen from behind.
The walk in
A full class of pupils in maroon jumpers at their desks, listening to a lesson.
A classroom, after the 2024 works

The school today

Rebuilt, and still being rebuilt.

The buildings are the estate's own age and they have needed the work. Renovation ran through the constituency development fund in 2019, and in 2024 the school was given a full renovation and a new administration block.

Both were announced publicly by the sitting Member of Parliament for Lang'ata at the time. The block on the compound is two storeys, concrete under iron sheets, as it has been since the 1970s.

Ask the school

The office closes at five. This doesn't.

Our assistant answers from the school's own records — how to enrol a child, what to bring, which grades we teach, where we are and when the office is open. If it does not know, it says so and takes your number for the office.