For School Leaders · Safety Update

School Gate Safety in Nairobi: Lessons from Kayole

Published: 16 October 2026

Most conversations about school transport focus on the bus: the route, the driver, the timing. But every school journey ends the same way, with a child stepping off a bus, out of a car or off a boda boda and walking the last few metres to the gate. That short stretch is often the most crowded and least managed part of the whole trip.

A new project in Kayole, Nairobi, is a useful reminder of what good last-metre safety looks like, and what private schools can borrow from it this term.

What happened at Mwangaza in Kayole

At Mwangaza Comprehensive School in Kayole, the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) and partners commissioned the “Safe Roads, Bright Futures” project, reported by The Standard. Funded by the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety, the Association for Safe International Road Travel and other partners, the project installed zebra crossings, bright school-zone signs, speed bumps and protected sidewalks on the roads next to the school.

A follow-up report in The Standard described the Safe School Zone handed over by Amend and ASIRT Kenya, working with KURA and NTSA. It includes two raised pedestrian crossings, four zebra crossings, eight asphalt-concrete speed bumps and 300 metres of two-metre-wide walkways, with the stated aim of separating children from traffic and keeping vehicle speeds below 30km/h where children and vehicles meet.

NTSA’s Assistant Director of Road Safety, Samuel Musumba, said 5,009 people died on Kenyan roads in 2025, a 6% rise and the highest in five years. Some 1,890 of them, almost 38%, were pedestrians. Nairobi recorded 560 deaths, most of them pedestrians.

Initiative Coordinator Roselyne Moraa put it simply: “It says that a child matters; it says that walking to school should never be a risk, and safer roads are our responsibility.”

The problem was the approach, not just the road

What stands out is how ordinary the risks were. Headteacher Richard Nyaga said vendors and mechanics had taken over the pedestrian walkways, and many boda boda riders were ignoring traffic laws. The school had two separate accidents involving learners near the school before the roads were demarcated, including a learner who sadly lost his life in July. Since the changes, Nyaga said, “children can walk freely into the school.”

Most private schools will never build a raised crossing themselves; that is the work of KURA, the county and NTSA. But the conditions Nyaga described (blocked walkways, unmanaged traffic, mixed modes of arrival) exist around many school gates in Nairobi, including schools with a full bus fleet.

Why this matters even if you run buses

A bus can be on time, well maintained and tracked, yet the child still has to cross from the bus to the gate. At pick-up, buses share the same approach as parents’ cars, walking learners, matatus and boda bodas. As Uganda’s Ministry of Works official Apollo Kashanku said at a school bus financing launch in Kampala, “Safe school transport requires more than simply having a vehicle on the road.”

A last-metre checklist for school leaders

Here is a practical list you can work through before Term III closes and before January:

• Map your gate approaches. Walk the roads around your school at drop-off and pick-up time. Note where children cross, where cars stop and where walkways are blocked.
• Mark a clear drop-off lane. Keep buses and private cars apart where possible, and keep children off the carriageway.
• Keep walkways clear. Talk to nearby vendors, garages and the county about obstructions, as the Mwangaza headteacher described.
• Put marshals at the gate at peak times. Trained staff in reflective vests help children cross and keep traffic moving.
• Set a boda boda policy. NTSA and partners urged parents to buy helmets for learners who use boda bodas, and riders not to carry more than one learner. Share this with parents in writing.
• Teach the crossing. Remind learners to use zebra crossings and designated crossing points every time.
• Tell parents when routes or gates change. A quick message prevents confusion and crowding at the wrong gate.
• Record who arrived and who left. A documented pickup and drop-off record answers the question every parent and head teacher asks: “Is my child where they should be?”
• Engage the authorities. If your approaches are dangerous, raise it with KURA, Nairobi County and NTSA. Kayole shows these partnerships can deliver.

Where MyRide fits

Gate discipline and good roads protect the last metre; visibility protects the journey. MyRide gives parents the bus’s live location and pickup and drop-off alerts in the MyRide Guardian app, while the school dashboard keeps trip and attendance records. MyRide is registered with Kenya’s Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC).

Want to see how it works for your school? Book a 20-minute demo at school.myride.co.ke.

Sources

• NTSA banks on new initiative to promote road safety for school children — The Standard, Oct 2026
• New school safety programme seeks to protect learners from road crashes — The Standard, 13 Oct 2026
• MAC East Africa, NCBA offer schools 100% financing for buses — The Independent (Uganda), 3 Oct 2026