Starting a Nursery School In Your Country (Business Plan)

Mr A

Do you love children, can you take care of about a dozen of them? If the answer to the question is yes, then you may be qualified to operate a day nursery.

With several mothers working, the day care has become a thing of necessity for thousands of parents. The nursery school provides an answer to mothers' working problem of caring for their children while at work. The mothers bring their children in the morning and pick them up by mid-day or late afternoon.

Some nurseries accept children from age three to five, while others accept from one year upwards.
The children must be provided with lunch, refreshments, snacks and a variety of play things.
Some nursery schools offer children instructions in singing rhymes, dancing, toilet training, elementary grammar and simple mathematics. A set of table, chair and sleeping mat is provided for each child.

Starting a Nursery School In Your Country (Business Plan)

If you own a large house and have ample ground space, it may be enough. If not, then you may need to rent a house or construct a small building. One thing to note is that if you are renting a house, you may have to pay up to a year's rent in advance. But if you are a good negotiator, you may get your place for a few months' down payment. I know two women who started from their husbands' garages and went on to their own fully equipped nursery schools.

In some countries or states, you would need a license to work with, but in many cases, you can open your nursery before you start pursuing the license. So check with your local government to be certain if a license is required or not. Inquire from them what the requirements are.

Visit a Nursery

Your first step, if you are unfamiliar with nursery schools is to visit one. Act as though you are a parent because nursery schools expect that parents would visit them before they bring their children. This would give you an opportunity to see how the place is equipped and operated. You can then decide if you will pattern yours in a similar way or innovate a bit.

List Out Items For Kids

When you get back home, quickly list the items you will like to buy, like toys and games, and plan on the number of children you would like to accommodate. You do not have to buy all your equipment at once. The most important thing is to buy the most essential items at the initial stage, then buy more as you progress or when the need arises.

The trick to a successful preschool business is to site your nursery on a busy or well traveled street. Your brightly colored swings, slides, etc., will serve as advertisement for you.

Choosing a Name For Your Nursery

Choose a name for your enterprise. Popular names are those that have connotation of children. Examples
are Kiddy Care, ABC Nursery, Pampers, Precious, etc. You may on the alternative use your name: Mrs Joan's Nursery School. You would need a brightly colored sign in front of your school for this.

Marketting Plans

A small advertisement in a widely read local newspaper is enough. You may allow this to run a few times for optimal results. Print small hand bills (about 1000 or more) and distribute them to homes in your vicinity.
Your location could also be an advertisement in itself. Many customers will want a place that is as close as possible along the route between office and home.

Profit Potential and Revenue Expectations

Revenue depends entirely on the level of sophistiction of your nursery. Simple and home based nurseries tend to be cheap and affordable by low class citizens, while high brow and sophisticated nurseries ask higher fees.

As examples, someone told me they paid N10,000 ($70) per term for their 24 months old son, plus N6,500 ($40) for uniform, shoe and tie.
Another couple said they paid about N54,000 ($340) for first term fee for registration, uniform and accessories in a high brow nursery school in Ikeja, Lagos.

Some proprietors charge on a monthly basis but a majority charge per term. Fee per term can depend on location (the class of people living around that place), facilities offered, and level of greed of the proprietors. In most cases, parents pay at the begining of the term.

Another source of income is application fee. Most low end nursery schools collect about N1000 ($10) as application fee. So if you multiply these values by the number of childern you pln to accommodate then you have your estimated revenue per term. To calculate your estimated profit per school term, you would have to deduct expenses including cost of food, payment for employees, replacement for broken toys and equipment, etc.

Scaling and Expanding Your Nursery / Primary School

Expansion is posssible in two ways. You can secure a larger house
to increase the number of children or you may establish an additional nursery. And if you are relly ambitious, you may expand to include a primary school. You can undoubtedly get rich in this business.

Nice post

How To Start a Nursery School / Primary School in Nigeria