Factors for the Development of the Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre - Example

Business Plan

Executive Summary

In line with the Ministry of Education and the Government encouragement of the private sector involvement in the provision of early childhood Education, Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre is one such unique crèche which would be formed following the standard requirement of the Circular of the Director of 2005. (Cleghorn and Prochner, 2003, pp 131-152). The Mission and Vision of the proposed nursery school would be entirely focused on the growth and the development of the child intellectually, emotionally and physically. The institution would be based in an affluent area of Avondale in Harare, Zimbabwe and would entirely be made of two classes, A and B with forty children in total. The crèche would target various affluent people ranging from business owners to the diaspora society. The institution would be under the efficient management of a CEO, and the entire teaching staffs would be composed of qualified ECD teachers. The institution would be al round with physical growth and developed as a core goal hence the provision of updated indoor and outdoor play activities.

The proposed facility would have various advantages to face a wealthy competition against the existing nursery schools due to cheaper education, improved facilities for physical education and motivated highly qualified teachers. The additional unique standards of the institution in standing above the competitors would be the provision of all meals including breakfast as compared to other systems which do not provide breakfast. The Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Center is projected to face subtle risks of investments due to the higher demand or ECD education by the Citizens

Business Description

For over 20 years after the independence of Zimbabwe, the government has hugely invested in the sector of teaching. By the elapses of, this time, the education system of Zimbabwe was among the best in the African continent, (Cleghorn and Prochner, 2003, pp 131-152). The success of the program was ensured by the crucial role of the private citizens of Zimbabwe in education and the huge sacrifice individual families make to ensure quality education for their children. The political and the financial difficulty that the country has been facing during the initial decade of the current century, however, led to a huge drop in the sector of education. The outcome of the decline has been particularly noted in schools in the rural settings. Following such looming difficulties, investment efforts in the programs of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) was quite minimal since the government together with the organizations of the civil society concentrated more on the provision of education at primary and secondary level. The ECD, as a result, received minimal attention.

The programs which are in existence of Early Childhood Education in the country give children from the low economic background a chance to acquire a stimulating and a real social interaction which may lack in the home setting. The centers o ECD allows for the efficient monitoring of the health of the children together with their nutritional condition and the implementation of suitable interventional steps where necessary. The centers additional give an appropriate venue to identify the children lacking the certificates of birth and give a chance to inform the parents of the need to of the acquisition of such relevant documents and the importance of early learning for school preparation.

The Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe has aimed at implementing the Presidential Commission of Inquiry in Education and Training of 1999 and consequentially introduced various policies and guidelines specifically addressing the Early Childhood Education. The actions have included the circular of the Secretary on guidelines in 2004, (Cleghorn, and Prochner 1997, pp, 339-352). The aim has been to implement the Commission of the President’s inquiry on Education, the circular of the director numbered 12 on ECD provision in the primary learning schools of 2005 and the Circular of the principal Director of 2011 stating the strategies of curbing the looming eruption of ECD centres that are not registered.

The aims of the stated policies have significantly been met in the formation of ECD A and B classes in primary schools. The statistics o enrolment have however depicted a greater need for action to improve the universal accessibility of education to the entire curriculum of the program of nine years. The circular of the Secretary numbered 14 made in 2004 implies that beginning the year 2005, full primary schools must provide at least an early center for childhood education and a class of care for 4-5-year-old children. The regular group of kids would further proceed to grade one. The Circular of the Director numbered 48 coined in 2007 briefs on how the programs of ECD in all schools would be implemented. The circular details that all the centers of the ECD started out of the premises of the school have to be affiliated to the nearest school for assistance concerning professionalism and administration. Further, learning and teaching materials should be locally produced, there should be a complete daily activities outlines, and the centers should own and utilize the national syllabus of ECD. The circular finally states that the centres o ECD should structure a scheme of feeding, and this would involve mobilization of the local communities in assistance towards the provision of food and the children feeding.

In line with the stated above Circular of the Director, I as an investor in the private sector wish to supplement the action of the government in the provision of Early Childhood Education due to the looming constraints as a result of the mentioned political and financial hurdles. The proposed project will be a nursery school with the proposed name of Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre and will be located on 28 McNally Road, King George Road, at Avondale in Harare. Avondale is the very affluent town within the Northern region of Harare. Several wealthy neighborhoods are situated here. The capital the City of Zimbabwe is Harare and Avondale is just approximately three kilometers from the center of Harare, which serves as the first district of business in Zimbabwe. Avondale as a place is easy to access by both private and public transport. The town is also quite popular within the North region because of the large shopping malls and the centres of leisure. The mission statement of Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre would be to give a safe, easy to afford, quality of care for children of Avondale community. In doing so, the school supports various families in various efforts and aims of reaching their goals. Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre gives a cognitively enhanced system for multiple children between 2-6 years. As a community, we provide an environment that is equivalent to the home in which young learners are given a conducive room to gain development of the mind at their individual pace. The Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre staff is highly committed to excellence and to the families we provide service to, we strive to give an unconditional support and necessary encouragement.

At Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre, our vision aims to be a happy and a safe place in which everybody is recognized and esteemed, and a place where various needs are accepted, acknowledge and met. We encourage every child to operate independently and with discipline, to acquire a degree of responsibility at an individual level and develop respect towards other people and the environment in entirety. We aim to give the exciting range of physical activities and to set ‘an able to achieve’ attitude that will last in the child throughout their life. We aim to work entirely towards the development of the esteem of the child and to appreciate and include various aspects of the life of the child, develop and build a strong affiliation with the community and the different schools of tomorrow for the children. For an efficient operation, the school aims at enrolling 20 children in class A and 20 children in class B. The proposed plan of nursery education targets the an entire population who widely are accountants, owners of small businesses, bankers, farmers and the diaspora families based in countries like United States, United Kingdom, Australia amongst others.

The proposed plan is a new startup business which will operate from a leased four-bedroomed house. In complying with the stated Ministry of Education requirement, some renovations will be done to the rented house, (Hisrich and Peters, 1992, n.p). The improvements would involve addition of toilets which are fitting the size of the children. The toilets will be increased in numbers so as to comply with the regulatory requirement of 1 toilet to 6 children. Outdoor toys including little Tikes Cape cottage, phlat ball neon, slide, and swings will be purchased as means of physical education for the children. The other purchases will include books, laptops and educational toys as learning aids for the children. The leased house has two lounges which will be utilized as offices, teaching rooms, the library, the play room, the restroom amongst other requirements.

Market analysis

The financial and the political hurdles within the Government of Zimbabwe has led to a mass encouragement of the private sector to contribute to the provision of early Childhood education. The business of setting up the center is because of an existing higher demand for ECD educational centres than the supply which exist in the market in Zimbabwe. Because of such requirements, the Government of Zimbabwe is going to the extent of encouraging the nursery centres to enlarge to the third year of primary school, (Sahlman, 2008, n.p). There is higher need for nursery schools in the country, and they are not comparable to the centers of daycare since nursery schools additionally participate in the education of young children and prepare them to face the primary school in future.

The findings from research have shown that several children lack access to early Childhood education thus compromising their developmental progress. As a result, a recommendation has been made by the Commission to increase the accessibility of ECD as part of the policy of the nation to mend entire education quality at the primary standards in Zimbabwe. As a result, the Ministry o Education has made a policy to that require all schools of primary level to form two classes of ECD for children between the age of 3 and four years.

The management team

The overall management of Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre will be the manager who will double as the Chie Executive Officer. The manager will possess bachelors of Arts degree in ECD together with experience ranging from two years and above. Under the top manager will be the lead teacher who will have the supervisory role. The lead teacher would be the highly experienced teacher. The institution would also have an additional teacher who also poses baccalaureate in the development of early childhood together with an experience of two years. The teachers would be assisted by three teaching assistants who hold the diploma in early childhood and development and additional experience of two in education assistance. The teaching staff would be subordinated by a chef and a cleaner who would only work for two hours in a day.

Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre would only handle children between 3 to 6 years, and the classes would be separated into two, one class would contain twenty children between the age of three and four years while the second class would also have twenty children who are between 5-6 years of age. Every class would have a stipulated teacher who is qualified and a teaching assistant. Even though the government stipulation is to have a teacher for every twenty children, the class in the institution would have both a teacher and an assistant. An additional teaching assistant would be available in case of any need to ensure the smooth activities of the school.

Operations.

Each class of the two categories of Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre will be headed by a qualified teacher and a teaching assistant. The time of opening would be 7.30 am in the morning while the date of closing would be 5.30 pm from Monday to Friday. Breakfast would be served to both the children and the entire staffs by the chef between 7.30 am and 8.15 am for 45 minutes, after which teaching would commence from 8.30 and move all through to 12.15 noon. After the time of instruction, lunch would follow for 45 minutes from 12.30 to 13.15 pm. After lunch, the children would engage in a quality rest time starting from 13.15 pm to 14.45 pm then initiate a time of play immediately from 14.45 to 16.00 pm. Tea and snacks would be served from 16.00 pm to 16.30 for a duration of thirty minutes then children would be engaged in watching educational Programme in the television till 17.30 pm.

The children would have regular swimming lessons every Thursdays from 14.45 to 16.00 pm. The yearly activities would include various trips to relevant, exciting places like the Zoos and museums amongst others; there would be nativity plays for Christmas, sports days and fun days which would ensure the children get enough environment and time to interact with various people. Different arranged trips would be paid for by individual parents and fees surmounting to 250 US dollars would be paid by the same parents. The paid 250 dollars would include the extra curricula activities like computers, swimming, art and dance. The aesthetic value and beauty of the school would be maintained by a gardener who would be contracted twice in every month.

Critical Risks

Starting Little Treasure Early Childhood Development Centre as a nursery school in Zimbabwe involves very low risk. Insurance would not be involved as parents are responsible for the safety of their children. The likelihood o reduction in children enrolment would be tiny since there is a huge demand or slots and as a result, the government is often encouraging schools of the primary level to absorb the year zeros. In any case, the enrolment would drop, the consequence of risk would be medium or small, and this would depend on the percentage of the reduction in intake. The efficient ways to manage possible risks would be to carry out proper strategies of marketing. The strategies for marketing would be reviewed annually to ensure effectivity.

The likelihood of reduced turn-over of the staffs is very minimal because of the high rate of unemployment in the country. In case of such an occurrence, however, the educational and emotional progress of the child would be negatively affected, (Mason and Stark, 2004, pp 247-248). The strategies to assist reduce the poor turn-over of the staffs would be to monitor and review various teachers’ performances and the engagement of the teaching assistants to help the teachers where necessary. The evaluation of performances would be carried out twice in a year by the manager.

There is very minimal possibility of breaking any regulation. The risk involves very low, but the effect would be very huge since the nursery may be closed by the government in case the laws are infringed. As a result, checklists would be evaluated on monthly basis and the operations of the manager and the CEO. Such legalities involve the registration of the crèche with the Ministry of Education, acquisition of a certificate of health from the authority of the local council of Harare. Testing of the entire staffs for the possibility of any disease and the obtaining of a medical certificate is also a vital requirement for health. The acceptable ratio of teacher to child is 1:20 and the final legal obligation is an agreement of lease, assuming a provision of a five-year lease period for a residential home of five bedrooms of 600 square metres on 4000 square meters land. The rented house would also be together with a swimming pool.

Regarding space, indoor space for playing of 1.2,25 square metres for each child is the recommended requirements with an outdoor spacing of 1.5-5 square metres for every child. Regarding tax exemption, the staffs earning below 300 US dollars would be exempted from paying taxes and the businesses of crèches are also excused from paying taxes.

To efficiently market the crèche, modern media platforms in Zimbabwe like Facebook and WhatsApp would be used since very few people are likely to peruse on the web pages as a result of the exorbitant cost of broadband for homes and contracts for deals of phones. In the end, most people pay for standard platforms like Facebook.

Since majority of the citizens in Zimbabwe are Christians and the wealthy attend the big churches, brochures and leaflets would be distributed to the established churches to get an increased publicity. The Facebook will be used to reach the diaspora people who often send relatives to wealthy schools since there is a belief of high-quality education provision in affluent schools.

Regarding competition analysis with the existing service providers, the crèche would be much centrally located thus increase accessibility in comparison to two competitors which majorly accessed by a means of private transport. The institution would also be cheap but with quality extra curricula activities which are competitive. Such would entail enough Wi-Fi laptops, lessons of swimming, accredited teachers with high salaries hence motivated, over recommended staffs hence efficient delivery of service and partial training for development payment hence the likelihood of a happy staff.

Financial projections

Capital 5000 US Dollars

Wages in a month

Dollars

Salaries for 2 teachers

900

Salaries for 3 teaching assistants

720

Chef

250

Cleaner

80

Accounts personnel

300

security

240

Swimming teacher

160

Gardener

60

Sum total

2410 US dollars

Monthly Bills

Electricity

130

groceries

150

Council tax

80

water

70

Rent

1000

Total

1550

Total Monthly Expenses

3960 US Dollars

Purchases

Two slides

200

20 laptops

5800

Puzzle games

800

Toys

800

Outdoor toys

2000

40 chairs

400

Furniture

2000

Books

500

Monthly children fees and registration 250 dollars, and 30 dollars

Annual cost

Trainings and development of staffs: Bonuses or Christmas,

500

Bonus for teachers for Christmas

160

Bonuses for teaching assistants

150

Chef

50

Administration assistant

80

Security

50

Swimming teacher( 3 hours weekly)

30

Gardener( twice monthly)

30

Reference

Cleghorn, A. and Prochner, L., 1997. Early childhood education in Zimbabwe: Recent trends and prospects. Early Education and Development, 8(3), pp.339-352.

Cleghorn, A. and Prochner, L., 2003. Contrasting Visions of Early Childhood Education Examples from Rural and Urban Settings in Zimbabwe and India.Journal of early childhood research, 1(2), pp.131-153.

Hisrich, R.D. and Peters, M.P., 1992. Entrepreneurship: Starting, developing, and managing a new enterprise. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Mason, C. and Stark, M., 2004. What do investors look for in a business plan? A comparison of the investment criteria of bankers, venture capitalists and business angels. International Small Business Journal, 22(3), pp.227-248.

Sahlman, W.A., 2008. How to write a great business plan. Harvard Business Press.