What to ask before you enrol in an events course in Kenya

The Events Academy

Events training in Kenya is unregulated enough that anyone can run a course. Some are excellent. Some are a slide deck and a certificate. The difference is not obvious from an Instagram post, and you usually find out after you have paid.

These are the questions worth asking any school, including this one. If a school cannot answer them clearly, that is itself an answer.

1. Is the school accredited, and by whom?

In Kenya the body that matters is NITA, the National Industrial Training Authority. A NITA-certified training provider has been assessed; anyone can print a certificate, but not anyone can be certified. Ask directly, and ask what the certificate you receive will say.

2. Who actually teaches, and are they still working in events?

This is the question that separates courses more than any other. Someone who ran an event last month teaches differently from someone teaching from a textbook. Ask for the trainers by name, then look them up. You should be able to find their work.

You are not buying information. Information is free. You are buying judgement, and judgement comes from people who are still doing the job.

3. How big is the class?

Events is a relationship business, and so is learning it. In a class of fifteen you present your work and get picked apart kindly. In a class of eighty you watch. Ask for the cap, not the average.

4. How much of it is practical?

Ask what you will physically produce during the course. A budget you built. A proposal you pitched. An event you ran with your classmates. If the answer is only lectures and a written test, you will finish knowing about events rather than knowing how to deliver one.

5. How are you assessed?

Assessment tells you what the school actually values. A course that grades you on a project, a group event and your attendance is asking for something different from one that grades a multiple-choice paper.

6. What do you leave with, besides the certificate?

The useful answers here are concrete: a business plan, a portfolio piece, templates you will reuse, a costed proposal. Ask to see an example from a past student.

7. What does the fee include, and what does it not?

Get this in writing before you pay. Materials, the certificate, any practical sessions, access to the class after it ends. Ask whether payment can be staged, and what happens if you miss a class.

8. What happened to the last cohort?

Not testimonials — outcomes. Where are they now? Are any of them working? Is there anyone you can speak to? A school that has trained real people can usually introduce you to one.

9. Can you come and see the place first?

Any school confident in what it does will let you sit in the room, meet the trainers and ask awkward questions before you commit. If visiting is difficult to arrange, take that seriously.

Our own answers

We are NITA-certified. Every trainer here worked professionally in events before they taught and still does. Classes are deliberately small. You build real work every week and present it. You leave with a certificate, a project you have defended and, on the business course, a plan you can execute on Monday.

And we hold a free open day before each intake, precisely so you can ask all nine of these in person.