If you are looking for business that will not fade out with time, school business will be among the top ten, the reason is not far fetch, at least 80% of adults will reproduce and they will want to give their child a quality education.
Also education is one of the factors that can increase the chances of being rich in Nigeria, of course no parent who want their child to be poor.
Reading this article means you want to establish school (nursery, primary and secondary), or you want to broaden your knowledge on school establishment, well whatever is the case you have come to the right place as I will be sharing steps of establishing successful school business in Nigeria, including cost and profit analysis.
Before going into the steps I want you to take note of the following
Niches of school business
School has different niches to choose from, if you are just starting with no prior knowledge, I will advice you to start from least requirement niche such as primary and grow from there
Crèche/ Day care
- Focus is on student below 4 years of age
- It is not capital intensive
- Can be stressful
Primary
- In this niche your focus is on student between 3 to 14 years of age
- You can save money by hiring a school certificate.
- The cost of starting is low
- Less government regulation
Secondary
- Focus is on student between 10 to 20 years of age
- It require huge capital
- Heavy government regulation
- Require standardize structure
- You can’t hire school Cert
Steps to starting school business in Nigeria
Feasibility study
In any business feasibility is the first step to take; it will let you know if your business will be profitable in your chosen location and also how profitable it will be. Interview your potential customer (parents), other school in the area (competitor).
Interviewing competitor may be hard and most time they will not want to talk to you because nobody want a competitor, to get information form them disguise as a parent who want to enroll their child.
Information from your feasibility study should reveal the total number of school able children in the area (Total Addressable Market)
What numbers of children are underserved (your target market)
Average revenue of your competitor
Difficulty of entering the market
And many more.
Location
Feasibility and location work hand in hand, but here, we will be looking at location from different angle.
Select location that have a lot of unoccupied land, in case you will renting building or space, you will be able to retain your students when you move to your permanent destination.
Your location should be a serene one, that will aide learning and also it should meetup with government requirement.
Business plan
School is not like other business that you can go into without proper plan. Write a well detailed plan that will serve as a guide, don’t forget to include your mission and vision.
If you will need a loan or investment at a later date make sure to make it simple and concise for easy reading by bank and investors.
Register with appropriate agency
First, you need to register with the CAC (Corporate Affairs Commission) and other agency (depend on state, but usually with ministry of education).
While it is possible to start school business without registering, you will want to avoid future confrontation with the authority.
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Building / rent
The next in line is building, I will advise you to leave building to professional who know a lot about school.
If you are starting with little fund you can rent building but make sure you follow step 2 in doing so.
Whatever the case, your building should contain the following
Teacher’s office
Principal/HOD’s office
Reception
Class room
Rest rooms
Store
Practical rooms if any
Vocational room if any
Source of water
Equipment/facilities
Below are the facilities you need to start a school
Boards
Chairs
Books
Shelves
Desks
Musical instrument
Chalks
Computers
Chart
Games
First aid kits
Swing
Design a school uniform
You might want to overlook this step but don’t it is very crucial. School uniform can attract student to your school especially primary students.
I could remember my primary school days, the reason I pester my mom to let me go to our neighbor school was because of their school uniform.
Don’t get me wrong while school uniform can attract student, if the quality of education is poor it will surely repel student.
Hire best designer, to design your school uniform.
Employee
You can’t do the work alone, you need competent staff. Don’t make mistake of employing school cert if your starting secondary school it will give a bad impression about your school and that’s if authority did not clamped down on you.
Below are the staffs you will need other than teachers
Security guards
Cleaners
Receptionist
Librarian
Accountant
Clerk
Bus driver
Name, logo and motto
Name logo and motto are very important, they will tell people about your culture, principle , focus and what your school is all about,. It is branding so do not treat it lightly.
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Marketing
Every business need marketing, school business is not left out. From your feasibility study you should be able to deduct the best advertising medium where you can acquire your target customer.
Marketing in school business can be tricky, while student are your patronize, your target customer are the parent, therefor 70% of your advertisement should target parents because they are the decision maker.
Below are the ways to advertise your business
- Flyers and logo
- Sign post
- TV and Radio
- Social media
- Create a website with content that will drive traffic to it. You can contact us for that.
Strategy to launch your school business in Nigeria
Starting school can be hard because school business run on word of mouth and if you are just starting there is no student to help on that.
Follow the below point to launch your school business successfully
Offer low tuition fee
Survey your competitor tuition fee and offer what is less than that. The news of the offer will spread and as it spread people will want to enroll their ward in your school.
Offer free uniform
Another strategies is to offer free uniform to the first 100 students, you will see how parent will rush their child to your school.
Branded notebook
You can made this free or paid whatever you choose make sure the note book design is topnotch with your school name and logo on it, you see student like flashy things it won’t be long before their friends will start coveting it, these will lead them to the door of school.
Free lesson
Launch your school business during the holiday when student goes to lesson and make your own lesson free. The next term you will see parents knocking on your school door.
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Cost of starting a primary and nursery school in Nigeria
Note: this is a rough estimate
Land procurement = #500,000 to #5,000,000
Construction = #2,000,000 to #5,000,000
Equipment procurement = #500,000 to #1,000,000
Teacher salary for a year (20,000 per 1) = #1,000,000
School bus = #800,000 to #4,000,000
License and registration (depending on state) = #50,000 to #150,000
Advertisement cost = #100,000
Miscellaneous = #100,000
You will need between #3 million and #15 million depending on your scale of production.
Challenges of school business in Nigeria
There are no businesses without challenges, so school business is not left out. Below are the challenges you may encounter
Payment
Out of 100% have it in mind that it is only 60% of your students will pay their tuition complete and some might even run away with your money.
Solution
There is really no solution, just ensure each student pay at least have of their tuition before the term break.
Teacher and parent’s war
Haa, you will experience this one very well, parent can be over protective, if anything happen to their children especially female such as excessive flogging there will be a tsunami the following day.
Solution
Warn your teacher of excessive flogging; go as far as threatening them with sack letter.
Dull students
There are some students that won’t respond to teaching no matter how you teach them, perhaps it’s as a result of medical challenges, but unfortunately parents will not want to hear that they will give school a bad name and this will drop the good image of your school.
Solution
Always set a test for student before you accept them, this will help you to accept sharp student that will respond to teaching.
