If you are passionate about teaching and have prior
experience in early childhood education, this is the perfect opportunity for
you to become an education entrepreneur.
Playschool is a very popular business idea in the education
sector. So if you have a passion for teaching and have prior experience in
early childhood education, this is the perfect opportunity for you to become an
education entrepreneur.
What is playschool
A pre-school or better known as a playschool primarily
teaches children between the ages of 2 to 4 years. As the name suggests,
playschools provide a blend of learning and play to very young children and
help them develop social skills and learning abilities.
How to get started
You can either start your own playschool or take a franchise
of any popular playschool brand like Grow Inn Steps, Eurokids or Bachpan etc.
Opening a franchise does not require much planning as the parent company will
set the guidelines for setting up and running the school. However, it comes
with a higher cost. Whereas if you want to start your own pre-school, you will
have to manage everything yourself, from marketing to branding to designing
your own curriculum. But, don't worry because setting up Playskool is not as
cumbersome as it may seem.
So to start, first identify a location for your pre-school.
You will need approximately 1,000 square feet of area for a school that can
accommodate a maximum of 60 children. We suggest you locate your school in a
residential area as parents prefer to send their children to nearby
playschools.
Let us now understand the permissions and guidelines for
starting a pre-school business. Once you decide on the location, you will need
to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the society to run the
playschool. As for staffing, early childhood guidelines mandate one teacher or
a trained professional for every 20 students. An important thing to note here
is that if you want to teach in your own school, you will need a B.Ed degree or
a diploma in pre-school teaching program or an equivalent degree.
Now we move to the investment required for setting up the school.
Investment required
You will need an initial investment to set up your business,
while other costs will be ongoing operating expenses. Setting, furnishing and
decoration will cost you Rs 60,000-70,000. Setting up a play area with toys and
other play equipment may cost you up to Rs 1 lakh, while educational materials
and learning equipment in classrooms will cost you Rs 25-30,000.
As for operating costs, your play school rent will range
between Rs 30,000-35,000. Electricity and water bills can be around Rs 20,000
per month. The bulk of your operating costs will be on staffing, which will be
around Rs 80,000 for 3 teachers and 2 assistants. Of course, if you teach
yourself, you can save a lot of this cost. Also, unless your student population
exceeds 20, you may not have to hire more than one teacher initially.
After this, you will spend Rs 12,000-15,000 on marketing
every month until you get enough students, which can easily take 6-8 months.
As we said earlier, starting a play school on your own is
cheaper than starting a franchise. Most of the popular playschool brands ask
for a lump sum investment of Rs 12 to 13 lakh, which is much more than what we
cost.
Revenue
Your source of revenue will be the fees charged from
students, which will depend on the type of services you provide. For a regular
playschool that offers learning activities and a play area, the monthly fees
per student can range from Rs 2,000-2,200. If you want to provide day care
services and meals, you can charge more than Rs 3,500 per student. Along with
the monthly tuition fee, students also have to pay a one-time admission fee
which can range between Rs 15,000-20,000 per student.
So when you have 60 regular students attending your school,
you can easily get a profit of 30-35% on the total revenue.
Like any other business, the first year may be slow in terms
of profit generation. That said, pre-school business is also one of the few recession-proof
business ideas because no parent will ever compromise with their child's
education. So once your business takes off, no matter what happens, your
business will always flourish.
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