‘School businesses fail due to lack of proper planning’

Onyeka Jaivbo-Ojigbo, is an education consultant with Nemvas International Limited, the school administrator for Nemvas Schools and a life coach. In this interview, the educationist who recently published a book on effective school management, gives insight on how to run a successful school business without compromising good standard.

 What is Nemvas’ contributing to the education sector in Nigeria?

I head the Educational Consultancy Services unit in Nemvas International, and apart from the Nemvas School, a nursery and primary school, where we lay a solid foundation for our children and position them to be globally competitive;   we build the capacity of teachers which is very important in ensuring better standard in our educational system.

If education is key to national development, then it means that teachers hold that key to turn national development. The quality of teachers we have in the system, will affect the output. So if we begin to look in that direction and train our teachers and pay them well (unfortunately they are not well paid in both public and private schools), there will be significant change in the output.

In order to ensure good standard in the private school system which has become more popular than the public schools, we carry out school management training for school operators which covers setting up, running and sustenance of school business.

There are other services we offer that are all geared towards making the educational sector better.  For instance, we have the Abacus D’ Maths Academy which basically deals in stimulating the brains of children, helping them to learn Mathematics easily and with fun. It also helps to improve their memory, build their confidence and generally enhance other aspects of their development.

You recently published a book, how relevant is it to the education sector?

I just came up with a book titled, “Strategic School Management.” The book specifically discussed Nigeria’s educational sector and how it has evolved over the years to become private sector-dominated – about 70 percent of the schools in the country are privately-owned while only about 30 percent is being owned by government. The book also talked about the problems in the sector and proffered solutions on the way forward.

We discovered that there are a lot of challenges facing private school operators which erode so much on the quality of education they provide and often lead to their total collapse, so the book discussed important strategies in running a successful school business.

For instance, before you start a school, you must first of all think about your mission; why you are in the business. If you recognise that you are part of a rescue team, then you have to plan right from your funding, teachers, replacement plan, and succession plan. These are strategic issues you have to deal with fundamentally, because you may start your school but along the line you get stuck and unable to proceed.

What really motivated you into writing the book?

The book, ‘Strategic School Management’ came up as a result of my years in the school system. I run a school, I have colleague who run school, my children have been in school in this country and I have seen so much in the school system. I have had to relate with various stakeholders in the school system; parents, teachers, education ministry and the community.

So, I needed to share the ideas and experiences I have garnered so far with those already in school business and others gearing to join to help them succeed in their business while providing   good quality education to our children.

Do you think the dominance of private schools has improved educational standard in the country?

No. The multiplicity of management is another issue on its own in our educational system. Presently, there is a lot of mushrooming in the private school sector. What has happened is that government could not provide enough schools for the citizens so it allowed the private sector to fill the gap without ensuring that they bring in good or even better standard.

This may also be the case of ‘if you go to equity, do so with clean hands’ – since there is no model schools for government to set as standard for the private operators, there seem to be no yardstick to check them. I believe it is not enough to accept the forms, send inspectors to check the site and then give approval; after that there should be continuous checks on the contents, facilities and how these are maintained thereafter.

You find out that many people are rushing into the sector for the mere reason that there is need to provide schools for our children. Basically, it does not mean that most of the schools are substandard, but we need to up our game in that regards, because there are a lot of compromises and makeshifts going on in the sector. Government should ensure that standard is enforced in the sector.

Why do some private schools fail to succeed?

Private schools fail due to absence of proper planning. You cannot effectively run a school without having the basic facilities (laboratory, computer room, library), teaching aids and without paying the teachers well. We are in a global village now; you cannot have a child go through the primary school without knowing how to use the computer.

Some schools may be able to provide for these things but cannot pay their teachers or when they are able to pay teachers the tuition will be too high; so there is a lot of challenges that lead to some schools going aground when they can no longer cope while some continue even with the obvious absence of basic facilities because they want to remain in business – unfortunately, you still find children in these schools. There are a lot of secondary schools in this country without laboratories whereas the students are going to write WAEC.

Does quality really matter in the foundational level of education?

Yes, because the primary and pre-school are the foundation in education and if you don’t get it right there, it is going to affect other levels – you have to get it right from the basics.

For instance, you cannot effectively send a child whose foundation is not strong in primary school to secondary, if you do so; it means you are carrying on the defect to the next level. If you also graduate the child from secondary school into tertiary institution, you end up recycling the problem.

It is better we go back to the basics because if a child knows the literacy, numeracy, social norms and all other aspects, that child will be grounded in primary and is likely to do better in secondary school.

Over the last 10 years, we have been witnessing very poor WAEC results – most children cannot speak good English because they missed it in the primary school stage and some parents cannot be patient enough to let their children repeat classes. So the child is managed to the finishing line and they graduate without having the prerequisite knowledge and skills; and this will in turn have a negative effect on the society in general because such child will have nothing meaningfully to contribute.