Business Ideas for Africa # 24, mayo 2010, by Institute for Entrepreneurial Education of Lima

Acknowledgment: based on the article ¨Escape from Mediocre Education”, by Leon Trahtemberg,

A simple business idea for well-performing public teachers in Africa

 

Public Teachers Forming Student Circles

 

Still, in many developing countries prevails the paradoxical situation of having an insufficient public educational system that cannot guarantee an adequate educational level to the majority of student. This is being intensified by an expensive private educational alternative that is unaffordable for the majority of families and low incentives for the few well-performing public teachers. These circumstances are putting the majority of students at a disadvantage.

This issue could be addressed in the following way in Africa:

 

Well-performing public teachers could offer their service, i.e. every second day for 2 hours, to a small group of motivated and responsible students, previously selected by the teacher, in exchange for an hourly payment that would exceed his or her regular wage per hour in order to compensate for the extra work and to provide additional incentives.
The students should be from the same class or at least in the same grade in order to easily determine the topics to be taught, and live close together to easily identify an adequate space to meet. Additionally, homework could be handed out to be accomplished during the intermediate days when the group is not meeting. This would improve even more the learning process of the participating students.

 

Clearly, the teacher can improve his income level and at the same time motivated students receive an adequate education.
The payment charged by the teacher, for providing his or her educational service, would be spread over all participants and, thus, minimize the individual costs for each family and at the same time guarantee a moderate price and accessibility to his or her service for a wide range of families which otherwise would have to rely on an inadequate public education that does not offer adequate incentives for well-performing teachers.

 

It should be stated that the number of participating students as well as the teaching schedule are flexible and should be adapted to the students’ needs and economical situation in order to provide an adequate service.