After the Covid-19 lockdown is lifted, it will be business as unusual for the school administration and the teachers that have been impounded ever since the Covid–19 contagion became a global issue. Many things are anticipated, and many school administrators might even take loans so they van have enough to run the school. It might not be the same for others who have long been prepared for uncertainties.
It should be known, however, that all efforts to make any school flourish, should start right now, so that when things get better, the rest is a walkover.
6 Tips on How to Make Your School Thrive After The Covid-19 Lockdown
Here are some tips.
1. Make your school visible online
It is common in Africa for some schools to have no website or even a few social media pages to expose them to the masses. This is the chance for any school administrator to go out there and start a website for easy access, together with social media activation, to gain exposure.
This will further enable the registration of new students online through the website. This will simplify it for the parents, as they will not have to make queues at the bursar’s office anymore.
2. Advertise
Whether on social media, other people’s websites or even television stations, advertisements are the best way to get people to know you and your school. It also enables them to compare you with the other choices they were considering; and who knows, you might be the one.
Therefore, the best way to approach competition is not to shy away from it, but to attack it head-on. Get ready to compete and you might take the first position.
3. Recruit
If you have been looking forward to adding to your staff or simply recruiting new people for the job, this is the peak time for you to do it. People are out there, ready and willing to work but do not know where to start now or tomorrow, after the pandemic has been defeated.
Take them through the available interviews, test them and take the ones whom you find worthy. Remember to recruit the best that you can, because you’re faced with a variety of options.
This way, you shall be on a safe side to take the upper hand in the forthcoming competition that will take place.
4. Get ready to negotiate
Parents have been differently affected by this pandemic. Many people had taken loans to run their businesses, only to have them shut down indefinitely, thus closing their only sources of income.
When schools are reopened, expect a lot of parents to bring half or no initial payments at all, but verbal assurance of later payments as their students are educated.
Therefore, you should be open to negotiations, but not too soft either, because you may fail to reap any benefits. Set a payment plan for those parents and make sure they strictly adhere to it, be it two or three instalments.
5. Leave the fees structure intact
Now, this is also crucial. Just because we are suffering to earn something during this pandemic doesn’t mean you should cut the fee down, or hike it. It’s unsafe either way.
If you cut the fee, you might not be able to operate the school smoothly. Who knows? Food might become more expensive than it is now, yet you’ll have to feed the children and pay their teachers. This means you’ll register huge losses, and that’s not business way.
If you increase the fee, you might scare the new parents away, or even cause the parents you already have to reconsider their choice and look for some other school.
6. Get to the garden
Sounds controversial. Right? Well, let’s look at it like this; majority of the schools in Africa are day and boarding schools. This means they have both, and the majority is usually the boarding section. This means feeding, availing water and electricity, etcetera.
Getting to the garden, ensure that you plant a couple of acres of maize, so that by the indefinite time that the lockdown is lifted, you shall get to harvest tons of maize, from which you shall get flour. If this is how you solve the food part of it all, you will be immune to the impacts of the seemingly forthcoming inflation.
Conclusion
It is really hard and and gradual that a school gets to thrive, especially after a crisis like this one. Many parents are likely to maintain the choices they were found making. This means your school’s thriving and out competing others may take quite long to be attained. However, it is worthwhile because with these steps taken, the school will appear stable and reliable, so parents may want to transfer their children and get them to your school.