CULTURE BOOK

THE ESSENTIALS FO
R ALL ENKO EMPLO
YEES (NEW AND V
ETERANS)
 Summary

Why a “culture book”? P3

Some important beliefs and aspects of our model P4

Who we are P5

● What we stand for P6

● Who is Enko Education P7
● Our Values p8
● Our work principles P9
● Our pillars P10
● How we make decisions P11
● What we are not P12
● Our Social Impact p13
● Our child safeguarding policy p14
● Our Rituals P15

Our Visual Identity P16

 What will you find .. and not find in it

Our culture makes Enko Education is a venture with a unique ambition and mission. Over time, we
us unique developed our ways of thinking, working, being which define our culture.
This culture book aims to formalise essential aspects of this culture - our values,
Writing our behaviors, rituals, stories … to create a common referential and vocabulary, shape
our identity, influence our decisions and illustrate how the many pieces that we are
culture down
building tie together.
I would like this document to resonate with all our staff, teachers, support staff,
A Culture book central team, contractors (and even with candidates applying for jobs) and generate
for everyone discussions and debates within our different teams.
This document is neither a detailed description of processes, systems, howtos, nor
Culture book is a code of conduct, an operating manual (both being important but different
not everything documents). It is not a marketing material for parents. Also, it is not extensive: our
culture lives throughout the group, in ours schools and multiple teams.

We start, learn and Like everything we do, this document is a work in progress. Certainly parts are
improve missing, should be added or altered. Maybe the document is too short, or too long.
That’s fine. As always, we start, learn and improve. Also, this document shows as
much who we are as who we aspire to be.

Feedback This document is yours. Please share your comments and feedback here, so we can
wanted improve it and make it an even more relevant tool over time.
Eric Pignot
CEO and Founder
Some important beliefs and aspects of our model
1. We are tackling Africa’s (and the world) most important 5. Quality education can be delivered at a lower cost.
challenge. 1. Achieving lower price point - is the essence of our
1. We want to move the needle. mission. It requires ingenuity to best leverage our
2. We do not simply aspire to do a few good schools fewer resources.
impacting thousands of students. 2. We are not a competitor to the wealthy established
3. We aspire to do hundreds of them, impacting premium schools, as our aim is to increase access.
hundred of thousands of students. 3. As much as we recognise the importance of
infrastructure in education, we focus our investment
2. Private funding is the most scalable way to achieve our
on equipment, training and salaries rather than
mission.
infrastructure.
1. We are not a charity.
2. We want our future to be in our hands rather than in 6. Quality and Profitability cannot be dissociated.
those of donors or government whose priorities may 1. If quality is not there, we will fail our children. Parents
change any time. will choose other schools.
2. If profitability is not there, we will be able to neither
3. Talent is abundant on the continent.
pay our operating expenses nor grow therefore failing
1. Our role is to unlock potentials for our children first.
our mission.
2. We are also able to hire staff with great potential to
become, with training, coaching and perseverance, 7. University admission is an essential indicator of our success
outstanding international teachers. for our children and their parents.
4 It’s all about learning. 8 Diverse team and inclusive culture are vital to success
1. We are a learning company. .
1. Our unique mix of junior/veterans,
2. Everyone at Enko learns from children to teachers; polyvalent/specialists, african/non african is an
from heads of school to CEO, from juniors to veterans. incredible richness.
3. Nothing is set. Everything can and will change, 2. We need all of those talents around the table.
because we learn and improve all the time.
WHO WE ARE
 What we stand for

Enko Education acts for the African youth, the largest population of young
people in the world: their talent, their ambitions, and their future.
We want to empower our learners, unlock their potential, enabling them to
access the best universities in the world. In taking up this challenge, we share
inspirations, dreams, laughter, and knowledge.
We want our learners to blossom.
Here and now, in their studies.
And tomorrow, in their accomplished lives.
We offer them an inclusive education, of outstanding quality, so that they can
access the world’s elite universities and achieve success in extraordinary
careers. We build up our students’ confidence. We give them the tools to help
them become the architects of their own future, make a significant and lasting
impact to the world of today and tomorrow.
The foundations for these futures are being laid today.
Enko Education is African. Our ambition is embodied by our teams and
reflected in all our schools. We are committed to respecting and celebrating
the diversity of our large network of African International Schools.
And we will take our mission further. We will empower more and more people
across the continent, unlocking more and more potentials to change more
and more destinies. As pathmakers, we will continuously discover and try. As
lifelong learners, we will always aim to improve what we’ve started.
At Enko Education, we believe that learning is power, we believe in our African
roots and we believe that the paths we create are endless.
 Who is Enko Education

Every day, four values guide us. They express who we are, and guide what we do as well as what we say.
This set of standards means that we speak with one voice, we embody Enko Education, and have a real
impact.

Our Mission
Our Vision
Increase access to the world’s leading
Unlock learners’ potential across Africa to universities and to successful careers through
enhance the global future. high quality international education

Our Values
Our Territory
Caring
We are proudly African
Committed
We are pioneers
Pathmakers
We nurture and empower
Team-spirited
 Our values

Every day, four values guide us. They express who we are, and guide what we do as well as what we say.
This set of standards means that we speak with one voice, we embody Enko Education, and have a real
impact.

Caring
We seek to develop others and ourselves
We are positive and optimistic
We build trust through honest and open communication
Committed
We are resilient, we don’t give up
We do what we say and say what we do
We take ownership of our objectives and go the extra mile to
achieve them

Pathmakers Team-spirited
We dare to start and then improve We practice solidarity: we go beyond our own responsibilities
We design new solutions relevant to our unique context, to support our team mates
without reinventing the wheel We empower others to thrive and to grow together
We are humble and ambitious We celebrate our diversity
 Our work principles
Design locally-relevant group solutions Make fact-driven decisions
We do not reinvent the wheel in every of our schools. Decisions need to be backed by data and facts, not
We leverage everyone’s talent to design better solutions. opinions, to be understood by everyone.
We design at group level and implement at local level,
adapting when required.

Debate vividly, decide and commit Are Disciplined

Decision owners are responsible for putting the right persons Holding deadline; respecting rules and decisions
around the table, promote dialogue, listen and decide. Caring made, starting classes or meetings on time,
Participants are responsible for voicing their opinion, then commit providing feedback when asked, answering
to the decision. emails/slack messages when adequate are the basis
Consensus doesn’t happen every time. Committed of performance and teamwork.
It’s fine to disagree, it’s even fine to fight and raise the tone, if it’s in Wearing the right uniforms, the right clothes are
the best interest of our children and if we apologise at the end.
Passion is good.
Pathmakers another way to show our discipline

Team-spirited
Document everything
Start, learn and improve Formalizing in a crisp way brings specificity and
We take risks and move fast: better to stumble first alignment.
than to arrive last. Because no one has achieved it Meetings have agendas and minutes.
before, we know we will make mistakes. Decisions are documented in crisp notes ( 1-pager / 6
We iterate which is why we constantly look for and give -pager notes…). Size matters. Yes, writing a crisp
feedback. synthetic note takes more time than writing a long
one.
Are Ambitious
We raise the bar, we transform not just
improve what we do.
We look for performance. We do not wait
for things to happen.
 Our pillars

African roots Global Wings Future-oriented

Our schools guide our learners to
grow and value their African roots,
to be established in their identity,
proud of their African heritage and
willing to embrace the continent’s
opportunities.
Our schools support our learners to
develop their global wings, to
empower them to blossom on a
global playfield, recognising its
richness and diversity, and being
able to seize its opportunities.
Our schools prepare our learners to
deal effectively with the unpredictable
future, by helping them to learn how
to learn, to develop 21st-century skills,
to anticipate their university admission
and future career.

Co-construction with our community (parents & learners)

 How we make decisions

When designing a course, starting a new school, bringing changes to a

school, executing a marketing campaign… we are all regularly required to
make decisions.
Because of the nature of our organisation, and because we favor people
over process, we give a large degree of autonomy in the decision making
(process do not make decisions, process do not lead).
We expect from decision makers to:
• Demonstrate a lot of common sense and good judgement,
despite inherent ambiguity, workload
• Be rational and collect facts / figures
• Keep constantly in mind our mission, our values, work principles
and reference document (standards and practices, operating
manual, requirements from our accreditation partner)
• Involve the persons that need to be involved - in particular in the
central team when appropriate, in the school, in other schools …
• Formalise important rationals
We do not expect from decision makers to validate everything, to freeze
(not decide), to wait endlessly for inputs to come.
 Who we are not

As important as stating who we are - or aspire to be, it is equally important

to state who we are not. One of our key challenges is talent - attracting the
right team and staff takes incredible effort.
If:
• your aim is to independently implement your own vision and ideas
rather than create a global Enko model.
• you believe that with your experience, you have more to give than
to learn
• you estimate that you are at a level where you should lead, not do
• you think we need to go slow to make everything perfect before
moving to the next stage
• you prefer go fast alone rather than far together
• you think that status is more important than merit
• you look for short term reward more than long term
then … we will (and should) not work together because we are not a fit.
There is nothing wrong with that: there are plenty of other opportunities
on the continent that will greatly benefit from your talent and skills. We
wish you all the luck and would certainly like to stay in touch.
 Our Social Impact

We are proud to be offering the most affordable non subsidised IB

education of the continent (and probably of the world).
By doing so, we increase drastically the population eligible to such quality
education that sets up strong foundations for admission in universities.
However, despite our efforts to reduce cost, some bright but economically Last child in a family of 12, Christ-Jeriel is
disadvantaged students still cannot pay our fees, despite our effort. the best student of Ivory Coast. Enko
Education is covering for 100% of his school
We therefore have implemented a scholarship programme to give an fees.
opportunity to enroll in our schools.
Our objective is eventually that up to 20% of our learners benefit from
100% scholarships.

$286 730 14%

Total amount of
scholarships granted by
Enko Education to Enko
students so far for the
next school year.
of our students come
from underprivileged
background and are
The consulting firm Okan partners offered
on scholarships €65,000 to offer scholarships to 7 brilliant
students in Burkina Faso and Cameroon.
Our child safeguarding policy

Enko Education's commitment A policy based on The policy does not

international replace the school's
standards that you code of conduct. It
provides a framework for
need to adapt to our work to create a
your realities. healthy environment.
 Our rituals: how we live the culture every day
Daily huddles
Everyday of the week, all year long, teams
meet for 15 minutes on Zoom for the famous
Enko “daily huddle”. The goal is to share our
daily priorities and bottlenecks, but also for
people of the same team to meet every day
despite being in various locations.
Founders Speaker Series
Once every 2 months, our
Founders invite a prestigious
guest to address our students,
employees and partners. The
Founders’ Speaker Series gives
our students inspiration and
motivation through aspirational
African personalities.
Ask Anything
Once a month, all employees are invited to
attend a one-hour session in which the
CEO presents the latest group updates and
then answers all employees questions live
for 30 minutes. A way for employees to get
to know more about the Enko vision and
for the CEO to answer employees’
questions without being in schools.
OUR VISUAL IDENTITY
The Enko Green is the African Union flag’s green

The Enko Education logo uses the same green as

many different African countries, and the exact
same green as the African Union flag, therefore
embodying our vision of being a panAfrican
network of schools.
The “swipe” graphic system unlocks potential

On our walls, in our schools, on our marketing material, we use the “swipe” symbol as a graphic
system to make our identity alive. The swipe embodies our vision: unlocking potentials.
 Our graphic identity: it’s a family thing!

All Enko schools are campuses of a unique

concept of schools: the Enko African International
School. All our schools have the same logo and
similar look & feel in their very different buildings.
TO BE CONTINUED...