Growth is a desirable characteristic for every living thing. Your school, as an educational institution, metaphorically, is a living organism. Stunted growth or lack of growth is therefore undesirable if the holistic goals or objectives of your school are to be achieved or realised.

For your school to holistically experience exponential growth, you need to have at your finger tips proven and tested strategies that would navigate your school to greater heights.

Therefore, in this lecture we shall concentrate only 12 Strategies for School Growth.

It should be pointed out at this juncture that these strategies for school growth are not totally alien to some school owners. Some have the knowledge of these strategies theoretically but practically, they are bereft.

What then are these strategies?

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 1:

*The school environment must be attractive to parents or visitors, well painted with attractive colours and good designs, open spaces for pupils/students and well equipped in terms of facilities.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 2:

*Experienced and qualified teachers and care givers should be employed.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 3:

*Aggressive marketing of the school through sharing of flyers, work show and fixing of aesthetic banners/billboards in strategic places closer to the school milieu.

In these days of online marketing, your school should not be left out.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 4:

*Encourage your teachers to get involved in marketing the school services and be willing to give them(the teachers) little financial reward from fees paid by pupils/students being registered with the school.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 5:

*Use the Parents Teachers Association (P.T.A.)/ Parents’ Forum, friends and church/mosque members as indirect marketing agents.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 6:

*Make a live presentation in any of the popular radio stations to discuss the services of your school, if necessary.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 7:

*Retain existing pupils/students by providing quality services. This will enable the parents promote your school.

Don’t eat your seed capital or try to live big or being ostentatious. Invest back into your school.

 SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 8:

Before fixing fees, you probably need to consider and examine the following:

1. The class of individuals/ parents residing in the location of the school.
2. The kind of schools within your school location, quality of service, years of operation and amount collected as fees.
3. Monitor the trend of economic activities and understand Government policies on Education.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 9:

*After few years of operation, strive to acquire plots of land for the school in an event where the school uses a rented building. This helps in reducing cost drastically and gives the school a corporate image.

It should be unequivocally pointed that many Shylock landlords have exploited many school owners who don’t have their own personal buildings. Some as a result have been unceremoniously exited or frustrated out of the school business. Be wise!

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 10:

*Maintain a reasonable and manageable debt profile. Borrowed fund for growing the school should not go beyond the financial strength of the school in terms of repayment. When this happens, the growth level of the school is significantly affected.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 11:

*Appraise the operational performance of the school through feedback from parents, students and other legitimate stakeholders. School appraisal forms should be termly circulated to the key stakeholders of the school. This will enable you have an independent and objective assessment of the school’s performance.

SCHOOL GROWTH STRATEGY # 12:

*Staff training and retraining should be embraced. Training and retraining of staff should be based on need and necessity. It is absolutely difficult for a teacher or care agiver to give what he or she does not have .

Remember, ” if you don’t train them, you can’t blame them”.

Don’t be afraid to regular carry out capacity building sessions for your staff. Some of them after been trained, may leave your school for another school. Never mind, better ones would come.

CONCLUSION

 Facts to Note :

* Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.

*It takes an ample of time to grow your school to the desired level. You need to be persistent, passionate, focused and exercise a little patience.

*Don’t envy any proprietor/proprietress whose school is growing more than yours. They have paid their dues over time.

Remember, everyone(including you) have his/her TIME ZONE. Your own time of exaltation and promotion will surely come. Trust God absolutely, don’t depend on fetishistic activities to grow your school. It has a boomerang effect!

Big schools started like a mustard seed .

Thanks you.

 PETER O. KUDAISI, MCASSON, ACIPM

C.E.O./pedagogical Director,

Petraville Educational Consult, Lagos.

WhatsApp: +2348023204246

E-mail: peterkudaisi@gmail.com