International School of Kenya

The short version

The short version

The International School of Kenya (ISK) is a non-profit PreK–12 day school on Kirawa Road, at the Kitisuru–Runda border in Nairobi’s Gigiri diplomatic corridor.

It was established in 1976 under the co-sponsorship of the US Embassy and the Canadian High Commission, when the two missions bought the predecessor Nairobi International School from the United States International University.

It teaches a North American curriculum with the IB Diploma — offered since 1982 — to roughly 1,100 students from more than 70 nationalities, and it is accredited by the Middle States Association and the Council of International Schools.↗↗↗

For an expat family, the practical summary is this: if you are posted to Nairobi with the UN, an embassy or a multinational and you want the American or IB pathway, ISK is the reference school — physically inside the Gigiri diplomatic bubble and governed by a board with embassy-appointed seats.

The counterweights are the price (Kenya’s highest), the one-time and annual capital levies, and the fact that it is day-only: there is no boarding fallback if your work takes you up-country.

What the school is

Bought from a university, run for two embassies

ISK’s founding is a genuine two-government project. The school’s own handbooks record that it was established in 1976 under the co-sponsorship of the Canadian High Commission and the United States Embassy, purchasing the pre-existing Nairobi International School from its original owner, the United States International University.

It has occupied the same campus on Nairobi’s northern edge ever since — the school’s current homepage describes 40 acres set on a former coffee plantation, while older handbooks describe the site as 25 hectares.↗↗

Governance still reflects the founding deal.

ISK is a non-profit with no shareholders, run by a nine-member Board of Directors — six elected by the parent body and three appointed by the US Embassy and Canadian High Commission — overseen by a seven-member appointed Board of Governors, which the school’s OpenApply profile describes as four Canadian High Commission and three US Embassy appointees.

All tuition revenue is reinvested in programmes, facilities and staff. For families, the practical meaning is stability: the school cannot be sold, and its governors answer to the two missions whose children form its core community.↗↗

Accreditation history is long and current: first accredited at secondary level in 1980, fully accredited by 1999, and reaccredited through the joint CIS/MSA international process in June 2019. ISK also holds AISA and Round Square memberships.

In 2022 its Plastiki Rafiki upcycling programme won the International Schools Award for community building — a useful signal that the school’s Kenya-facing programmes are real rather than brochure filler.↗↗

Academics in practice

Common Core to the IB — plus a rare special-needs programme

ISK runs an American-style programme built on Common Core frameworks, with Spanish, French and Kiswahili as world languages, and has offered the IB Diploma in Grades 11–12 since 1982 — the first diploma candidate graduated in 1984. Graduates earn a North American high school diploma, with the full IB Diploma available on top.

The school’s homepage states a 99% IB exam pass rate; no mean score is published in a capturable source, so ask for the full results sheet with cohort size.↗↗↗

Two programmes distinguish ISK from most African international schools. The Intercultural Program — field study of Kenya’s geography, people and cultures running since 1978 from Grade 3 to Grade 11, with trips from one day to a full week — makes the host country a formal part of the curriculum rather than a backdrop.

And the Life-Centered Education (LCE) programme, running since 2019, serves students with mild to moderate learning needs including intellectual disabilities — rare provision on the continent, though priced separately at a reported USD 20,000 per year in addition to tuition.↗↗↗

Faculty numbers support the price point: in 2024 the school employed 149 faculty, over 60% holding master’s degrees. The school also runs a scholarship programme for Kenyan citizens covering full high school costs on merit and need — the main route by which local families without employer packages access the school.↗↗

Admissions and cost

Kenya’s highest fees — and the levy families miss

ISK’s official 2026-27 fee page confirms the structure first-hand: an application fee, a one-time capital levy, tuition in six bands from Pre-K to Grades 11–12, an annual capital levy, bus and lunch charges, plus special fees for the IB, supplementary language instruction and selected inter-cultural trips.

The figures themselves render in JavaScript and could not be captured, so the numbers below are dated secondary reporting — an August 2026 Kenyan press round-up puts tuition at USD 30,800 (Kindergarten) rising to USD 37,330 (Grades 11–12), with a USD 400 application fee, a one-time non-refundable capital levy of USD 11,000 per new student, and optional bus transport at USD 2,200 per year.↗↗

The line families miss is the second levy.

Alongside the one-time USD 11,000 capital levy, the fee aggregator’s 2026/27 page shows a separate annual capital levy of about KSh 207,000 (roughly USD 1,600) charged every year “to contribute to facility development” — with per-grade annual totals of KSh 2.65 million (KG2) rising to KSh 5.04 million (Grades 11–12).

Read the invoice, not the headline: a Grade 1 arrival in year one costs tuition plus roughly USD 12,600 in levies before the bus. ISK publishes in USD but allows Kenyan citizens to pay in shillings with proof of citizenship.↗↗

The trajectory matters for multi-year postings.

In 2017-18 ISK tuition ran USD 15,163 (Pre-K) to USD 29,072 (Grades 11–12) with a USD 1,250 annual capital levy; the reported 2026-27 top band of USD 37,330 is roughly 28% higher over nine years — modest in USD terms for the sector, but the one-time levy has climbed from USD 10,000 (undated OpenApply listing) to a reported USD 11,000.

Ask the school whether sibling reductions on the levy still apply — the older listing offered USD 500 off per additional child.↗↗

Admissions runs through the school’s OpenApply portal and requires a three-year paper trail: school reports for the three previous years (certified translations where needed), a confidential school report sent directly from the current school, a health form, MAP scores for Grade 3 onwards, and math, English and modern-language references for Grades 9–12.

The USD 400 application fee is valid for two years. Placement is reported as genuinely selective, often prioritised for diplomatic and expatriate families — demand that the UN’s Gigiri expansion (a USD 340 million project launched in May 2026) is likely to tighten further.↗↗↗

The family experience

Inside the Gigiri bubble: compound life and the 15-minute school run

ISK sits inside Nairobi’s Runda–Gigiri cluster, the diplomatic quarter anchored by the UN Office at Nairobi — the only UN Secretariat headquarters in the Global South, with more than 4,000 personnel.

Property guides describe the neighbourhood’s security as diplomatic-grade, with armed patrols and boom-barrier estates, and the school run is the shortest in the city for families who live inside the bubble: reported at 10–15 minutes from Runda to Gigiri, against 40–60 minutes from Karen to the CBD.↗↗

The trade-off is the same one as every embassy school: living near ISK means diplomatic-segment rents (reported at USD 2,500–4,500 a month for a three-bed in Gigiri/Rosslyn/Runda) and a community heavily weighted to UN and embassy rotations.

Families based in Karen or Langata for the British schools face a real cross-town decision, because the two clusters barely overlap.

The school runs buses (USD 2,200 a year), but routes are not published — confirm your estate is served before signing a lease, and check what the inter-cultural trip surcharges add in a typical year.↗↗

Take these to the school

Questions that move beyond the tour script