Omega Schools - A Chain of Private Schools for the Poor
Location
Omega Schools is partnering with school proprietors to create a sustainable large chain of branded low-cost private schools in Ghana. We are bringing private sector investment to the hundreds of low-cost private schools, dramatically enhancing their financial and educational performance. Our ultimate goal is to delivering quality educational services at the lowest cost on a grand scale.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Plot 1119, Amanfrom
Project City
Accra
Project Province/State
Greater Accra Region
Project Postal/Zip Code
WJ350, Wei
Project Country
Ghana
Your idea
Country your work focuses on:
Ghana
Website URL
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
YouTube Upload
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
<$100
Name Your Project
Omega Schools - A Chain of Private Schools for the Poor
Describe Your Idea
Omega Schools is partnering with school proprietors to create a sustainable large chain of branded low-cost private schools in Ghana. We are bringing private sector investment to the hundreds of low-cost private schools, dramatically enhancing their financial and educational performance. Our ultimate goal is to delivering quality educational services at the lowest cost on a grand scale.
Innovation
Describe your idea in fewer than 50 words.
Omega Schools is partnering with school proprietors to create a sustainable large chain of branded low-cost private schools in Ghana. We are bringing private sector investment to the hundreds of low-cost private schools, dramatically enhancing their financial and educational performance. Our ultimate goal is to deliver quality educational services at the lowest cost on a grand scale.
What makes your idea unique?
This is a private sector response to the education challenge in Ghana, helping to improve the quality of and extend access to education for the poor.
Our model is founded on partnership with existing low-cost schools, a strong national brand and an innovative curriculum. This combination offers school proprietors a clear and compelling value proposition that can be delivered at low cost on an unprecedented scale.
Our Partnership with local educational entrepreneurs harnesses and unleashes their talent, experience and energy in empowering aspirations at the bottom of the pyramid. This cooperative relationship should provide a maximally resilient business structure, most ready to compete in the marketplace.
We are developing a strong aspirational national brand, positioned within the value systems of the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ market which would tie our family of schools together. It is the first in this sector, transforming the existing low-cost school model by offering parents a quality guarantee and entrepreneurs immediate value.
Apart from investing in the development of an innovative curriculum, our project provides access to third party finance, Standardized proprietary ‘soft technology’ for school management, culture building, infrastructure development and other school business development tools.
What is your area of work? (Please check as many as apply.)
Early childhood development , Education .
What impact have you had?
Children improved on test score after just a month on our curriculum. We have been able to support two private school owners to build a more sustainable school business and to secure loans from local micro finance institutions. Our supported schools out-performed the controlled schools (1 public and 1 private School) Our teacher training program has given sustainable employment to young teachers (who other wise have very limited job opportunities).
Describe the primary problem(s) that your project is addressing.
Public education is failing the poor. The poor cannot wait for the state to reform public education, rid it of corruption and inefficiencies before their children can receive quality education. So the reality is that these poor parents are abandoning public schools en masse, to send their children to ‘budget’ private schools that charge low fees affordable even to parents on poverty-line wages.
Although these private schools are better than the public schools, they are not quite good enough. Whatever their advantages, clearly, their quality can be improved; no one acknowledges this more than the school entrepreneurs themselves. Our model will engage entrepreneurs about profitability, parents about quality of education and improvement in their children’s life chances. We would offer sustainable jobs to local people.
Describe the steps that your organization is taking to make your project successful.
We are partnering with key institutions, including local financial institutions to give third party loans to our schools, educational service vendors, contents development organization etc working with them to achieve our mission.
Impact
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Success in Year 1:
Recruit the right people to help scale the project
Invest in teacher education and management development for school proprietors
Develop and launch the brand, as a franchise system for low-cost schools
Form strategic partnerships with financial institutions, educational vendors, school real estate developers etc
Success in Year 2:
Position the Omega School brand as a quality guranttee seal for low-cost schools
Develop our school quality management systems, monitoring and remediation mechanism
Develop mechanism for involving parents in the learning of their children
Become visible in the private education sector, supporting the development of the industry
Success in Year 3:
Provide sustained publicity for Omega Schools
Support the development of educational contents
Scale quickly to other parts of the country
Do you have a business plan or strategic plan? (yes/no)
Yes
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 1:
Recruit the right people
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 2:
Develop the school franchise management systems and educational contnents
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization? STEP 3:
Launch out the franchise brand as a chain of low-cost private schools offering quality education
Describe the expected results of these actions.
Improve the quality of and extend access to education for low-income households
Deliver quality educational services at the lowest cost on an unprecedented scale and
Improve the cash flow per student for such schools.
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
My sister owns and runs one of these low-cost schools in a poor fishing community in Accra. I encountered the reality that poor people are abondoning the public schools to send their children to such low cost schools. I began asking questions. My questions led me James Tooley's research on low-cost schools. I began looking for ways to support my sister to better provide good education to this poor community. During my MBA programme, I developed the franchise business model (as a course workin one of my marketing classes).
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Ken Donkoh, started his career working with international development agencies including, a world Bank funded project in Northern Ghana, then with the UK aid agency, Oxfam, and finally with a USAID funded POLICY project. He began questioning the effectiveness of traditional aid and development models. His believe in private path to solving the poverty puzzle, led him to found Oguaa Business Incubator, a small Business Incubator Project in his home town, Cape Coast to support young entreprenurs to develop innovative businesses and create sustainable employment opportunities for disadvantage youth.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
From the Social edge website
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Adequate financing to package our solution and develop our brand.
Financing source
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
Opportunity International's Micro bank in Ghana and its Micro Insurance Agency (which is providing child education life assurance policy to cover our students).
University of Education Winneaba, helping develop educational contents and prviding teacher training forour schools
How long has this organization been operating? (i.e. less than a year; 1-5 years; more than 5 years)
more than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs? (yes/no)
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses? (yes/no)
Yes
The Story
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government? (yes/no)
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
We would benefit from in-kind support from these institutions, hence limiting our operational cost.
The partnership lends credibility to our young organization
How many people will your project serve annually?
We would serve about 100,000 school children from low income communities, 5000 local teachers, and 100 local school entrepreneurs in 5 years.
What is the total number of employees and total number of volunteers at your organization?
3 Empoyees and 5 Volunteers
What is your organization's business classification?
For-profit
Have you received funding from any of the following groups? (Please check as many as apply.)
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Comments
Dear Ken
This was a great entry!
I was especially intrigued by the franchising idea for primary schools. India has a similar system of privately franchised schools. I want to hear more about the realization of this initiative. How do you propose to engage these school entrepreneurs, as in where is the incentive to invest?
Also, behind the franchise, what is the unique educational value for the students?
Dear Fran,
In Ghana, especially, franchising is even more interesting. Unlike in India where education should legally be run as non-profit, schools in Ghana can register as a for-profit business. We do have three ways: schools we are starting on our own. Then those existing schools who would acquire our franchise package (brand, enhanced curriculum, teacher training, access to third party financing etc). We then charge them royalties (a percentage of their revenues). Our third option, is where we co-own the schools with existing proprietors. In that case we acquire a stake in the schools.
I will be glad if you norminate my entry!
Ken