Dereformer:

Fellow Nairalanders, Please I want to start an extramural classes in my locality for o'level students.(Mondays to Fridays 3.00pm to 6.00PM)

I will not be available all the time but I intend to engage an able coordinator(a corper).

What is your experiences? What is the cost structure in terms of Fixed and variable costs?

How much are students charged in your area per month?


Please i need your candid response.

yamakuza:

^ thanks for chipping in.

Are those rates per subject for early 2000?

1k3/mth in surulere is almost impossible now. If its not 5k/mth for 8 subjects now, it'd be 3k or 2k5 min.

As per lekki private coaching, 50k or 60k/mth is not uncommon nowadays for SAT, IGCSE, etc.

Op can extrapolate the other rates, or ask around for current rates.

All in all, thats quite a manual you have there.

Thanks again!

Dereformer:
Fellow Nairalanders, Please I want to start an extramural classes in my locality for o'level students.(Mondays to Fridays 3.00pm to 6.00PM)

I will not be available all the time but I intend to engage an able coordinator(a corper).

What is your experiences? What is the cost structure in terms of Fixed and variable costs?

How much are students charged in your area per month?


Please i need your candid response.

tanimola22:



Hi,

This is the catch. You go to a rich family and present yourself as the coordinator of a certain top class tutorial centre. The family tells you that their daughter or son is awful in physics, chemistry and math and therefore needs some help. You say OK, you will send down your teachers to get the job done. You then create a weekly time table with the student and his/her parents. The weekly timetable is such that 3 hours are allocated to math, 2 hours to physics and 2 hours to chemistry. You sum the hours to get 7hours/week. You multiply this number by the number of weeks your service is needed. The answer you obtain is the gross number of hours. At this point, you charge the family an hourly rate of 1700naira. After much bargaining, you agree to go with 1100 per hour. You then multiply this amount by the gross number of hours to obtain the full amount. The contract is signed and everyone is happy. The week later, you inform your physics, chemistry and math teachers to go to so so so and so house to tutor so so so and so student for so so so and so hours in a week. You can even decide to pay them half of the actual hourly rate. It is business, you know.

So, it would be more appropriate to view the rates as per hour rather than as per subject. Also, please note that not all subjects are considered useful. In my experience, parents of core science students would only hire private tutors to teach the students phy chem bio math further maths english or any other subject that cannot be understood by cramming.

Private tutoring is more profitable and provides more exposure. Much of the inspirations I got to aspire for bigger things in life, I got them by tutoring students whose parents had fame, unbelievable houses abi na castles and unimaginable wealth. Through private tutoring, my naked eyes saw things that many people can only dream about.

It is very obvious that I only have good things to say about tutoring. I don't blame myself for that sha.

T22.

yamakuza:
^ thanks for chipping in.

Are those rates per subject for early 2000?

1k3/mth in surulere is almost impossible now. If its not 5k/mth for 8 subjects now, it'd be 3k or 2k5 min.

As per lekki private coaching, 50k or 60k/mth is not uncommon nowadays for SAT, IGCSE, etc.

Op can extrapolate the other rates, or ask around for current rates.

All in all, thats quite a manual you have there.

Thanks again!

promisechild:
Tanimola had said it all.tutorial business is very lucrative like oil business.I have worked with pathfinders tutor and ,daddy richie concept tutors back then when I was in lagos but now in fct I Work with positive step academy,legend tutor,global classroom and universal tutors.I must confess the owner of these centres are making it big in it.As TT2 said u should be ready to add values
to the life of ur students by going extra miles to getting expo for ur students and employing good teachers to handle your students.Majorly u need pakaging because there are many people in this business already.

yamakuza:
Hmmmn.

Thanks for this expo!

One more thing. Seems op holds a regular 9 to 5 job, hence her desire to hire a corper and do evening classes alone.

Guess she has to rethink her strategy to accomodate all the opportunities u've presented.

We earnestly await her comments sha.

tanimola22:



OP,

I pretty much left the ‘tutorial centre’ business a few years ago. So, my knowledge of the business is undoubtedly not current.  Nonetheless, I had a good experience and a nice time whilst in the business, and so I can still remember how we did things at that time. I am always willing to share my experiences and challenges with anyone who cares to listen. For this reason, I thank you for asking these questions.

Indeed, the business can be very lucrative if you station the tutorial centre in a strategic environment and you hire smart teachers. Many people earn a decent living as owners of tutorial centres. Examples of such people are owners of Offshore Tutors, Pathfinder Tutors (one of the anchors of mind your grammar TV programme aired on NTA), ADAMS Tutors, Artic Conference, Concept Tutors, Prime Success Tutors and co. Thus, aspiring to start a tutorial centre is definitely not a bad idea.

However, it would be very profitable if you could also include morning and evening sessions. The morning sessions, 9am-1pm, will take care of students who are wishing to retake WAEC or GCE or JAMB or Post UME etc, while the evening sessions, 6pm-9pm, will take care of those students who cannot attend the afternoon sessions because a similar ‘after school lesson’ is held in their schools. We are talking about students from, say, JSS2-SS2/3. Imagine what that number will do to the size of your tutorial centre business. Moreover, the evening sessions will also take care of those adults who are already working, but do not possess complete O’level papers. You will be surprised to know that there are many of such people around. Also, there are many adults who may well just want to improve their spoken and written English language. You can provide them that service. In fact, if you neglect the morning and evening sessions, you will be doing yourself a lot of disfavor. I advise you to not limit yourself to afternoon sessions alone.

Another avenue to making money from tutorial centre business, whilst adding value to the lives of students, is to organize separate practical classes that simulate the main material covered in actual O`level physics, chemistry, agric and biology  practical sessions. Saturdays and even Sundays can serve as days when students come for the practical classes. Students pay for these practical classes separately; the fees are not part of the normal monthly lesson fees. On a bad Saturday, you could make as much as 3000Naira (100 per student) depending on the number of students in attendance or the quality of the instructors or the location of the tutorial centre or how well you are able to create publicity. The instructors usually receive a percentage of the realized money. For instance, in my time, a physics practical instructor was paid about 15% of the realized amount on a given Saturday. The remaining 85% entered the pocket of the tutorial centre owner. Hahahah.

There are several major challenges to running a successful tutorial centre. The first is attracting students and keeping them; the second is providing value. Value in this sense could mean that you are able to provide espos to aid them in passing their external exams. Value could also mean that you are able to build a team of resourceful instructors who can make average students look good and good students look very good and very students look excellent. You get what I mean. If you are not able to provide espos during major exams like JAMB, GCE, WAEC and NECO, then your teachers must be value adders. In this case, you may only be able to attract top students who are desirous of learning to your tutorial centre. An example of a tutorial centre that was reputed for something like this is ADAMS located in Oshodi. However, if you are not able to provide good instructors, then you must provide exam espos if you want to profitably remain in business. This is the sad fact and the dark side to tutorial business! Some tutorial centres even go as far as providing both espos and good teachers. Pathfinder Tutorial centre in Surulere is an example of such notorious tutorial centres. Either way, you must be able to add value to keep your students. Please note that this strategy is helpful when the students in question are preparing for external exams.

On attracting students, well that is not very difficult. Just take some very nice O’level results to the secondary schools within your vicinity. Show the results to the students there and ask them if they want their results to look like the ones you have shown them or even better. Obviously, they will all answer yes; even the lazy and silly ones amongst them will say yes too. After they have answered yes, just tell them to move straight to your tutorial centre. The next is history. No student wants an F9! In fact, I used this strategy to build a tutorial centre from a zero level to a respectable level. At the time (early 2000), I would gather O’level results from smart friends, including mine, and then go to neighbouring secondary schools to intimidate students with the results. Before speaking for long, you would see students already asking for the address of the tutorial centre. So, use this strategy to your advantage.

Finally, I give brief answers to your questions-

***You should not start the tutorial centre if you are not ready to be there all the time for the first few months. Never trust anybody! Your hard earned students might be diverted to other tutorial centres. This exact thing happened to my mentor in early 2000. He learned in a painful way. Don’t fall into the same trap.


***For experiences, please digest the above epistle.

***To me, all costs are variable—the owner of the building you use as the tutorial centre could wake up one day and say she wants to increase the rent by 15%, your teachers may say their salaries are too small as compared to those of their peers in other tutorial centres and so they demand a 7% increase.

***The charges vary depending on the area, the type of exam and the mode of teaching. I will explain.

--If your tutorial centre is located in Lekki or VI or Banana Island or Ikoyi or in other posh places on the Island, then it would be absurd if you charged anything below 4000/Month for a student preparing for local O`level exams and 15000/Month for a student preparing for foreign O’level exams like IGCSE, London GCE, SAT subject tests and co. The charges, however, should be within the range of 1300-1600/Month and 7000-8500/Month for students preparing for local and foreign O´level exams respectively, if your tutorial centre is located in a place like Surulere.

--For private tutoring, the situation becomes per hour. So, for students located in posh areas, an hourly rate of 900-2500 for foreign O’level exams should not be out of place and an hourly rate of 600-1000 for local O`level exams is just fine. Whereas, for students located in Surulere, the hourly rates for foreign and local O’level exams are 700-1500 and 450-750 respectively.

----Prior to the O’level exams, you have JSS1-SS2. The fees or hourly rates are as described below:

JSS1-3
Posh area-non private tutoring—700-1000/Month
Posh area-private tutoring--- 500-1000/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—250-500/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —200-300/Hour

SS1-2
Posh area-non private tutoring---5000-7000/Month   
Posh area-private tutoring----700-1300/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—600-1000/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —300-450/Hour


Of course, the hourly rates depend on your bargaining power and whether or not the spoilt kids like you. In my time, I was their hero. Their parents especially liked talking to me. I was on between 1000-1300/Hour. At the time, a senior colleague was on 2000-3000/Hour. I am not kidding!!

Educating the younger generation is good. There is a sense of pride and fulfillment in it. Today, I am still friends with many of my numerous ex-students. Most of them are here in the West doing very well in their various institutions. That is exactly where the sense of pride and fulfillment comes in.

Good luck

T22.


*****These answers repose on the fact that your target environment is Lagos or Abuja or PH. In addition, your tutorial portfolio should be a combination of private and non-private. The private one will help hedge against the many risks that come with the non-private one.


Prime Success Tutors, I reserve my comments about the owner.

tanimola22:



OP,

I pretty much left the ‘tutorial centre’ business a few years ago. So, my knowledge of the business is undoubtedly not current.  Nonetheless, I had a good experience and a nice time whilst in the business, and so I can still remember how we did things at that time. I am always willing to share my experiences and challenges with anyone who cares to listen. For this reason, I thank you for asking these questions.

Indeed, the business can be very lucrative if you station the tutorial centre in a strategic environment and you hire smart teachers. Many people earn a decent living as owners of tutorial centres. Examples of such people are owners of Offshore Tutors, Pathfinder Tutors (one of the anchors of mind your grammar TV programme aired on NTA), ADAMS Tutors, Artic Conference, Concept Tutors, Prime Success Tutors and co. Thus, aspiring to start a tutorial centre is definitely not a bad idea.

However, it would be very profitable if you could also include morning and evening sessions. The morning sessions, 9am-1pm, will take care of students who are wishing to retake WAEC or GCE or JAMB or Post UME etc, while the evening sessions, 6pm-9pm, will take care of those students who cannot attend the afternoon sessions because a similar ‘after school lesson’ is held in their schools. We are talking about students from, say, JSS2-SS2/3. Imagine what that number will do to the size of your tutorial centre business. Moreover, the evening sessions will also take care of those adults who are already working, but do not possess complete O’level papers. You will be surprised to know that there are many of such people around. Also, there are many adults who may well just want to improve their spoken and written English language. You can provide them that service. In fact, if you neglect the morning and evening sessions, you will be doing yourself a lot of disfavor. I advise you to not limit yourself to afternoon sessions alone.

Another avenue to making money from tutorial centre business, whilst adding value to the lives of students, is to organize separate practical classes that simulate the main material covered in actual O`level physics, chemistry, agric and biology  practical sessions. Saturdays and even Sundays can serve as days when students come for the practical classes. Students pay for these practical classes separately; the fees are not part of the normal monthly lesson fees. On a bad Saturday, you could make as much as 3000Naira (100 per student) depending on the number of students in attendance or the quality of the instructors or the location of the tutorial centre or how well you are able to create publicity. The instructors usually receive a percentage of the realized money. For instance, in my time, a physics practical instructor was paid about 15% of the realized amount on a given Saturday. The remaining 85% entered the pocket of the tutorial centre owner. Hahahah.

There are several major challenges to running a successful tutorial centre. The first is attracting students and keeping them; the second is providing value. Value in this sense could mean that you are able to provide espos to aid them in passing their external exams. Value could also mean that you are able to build a team of resourceful instructors who can make average students look good and good students look very good and very students look excellent. You get what I mean. If you are not able to provide espos during major exams like JAMB, GCE, WAEC and NECO, then your teachers must be value adders. In this case, you may only be able to attract top students who are desirous of learning to your tutorial centre. An example of a tutorial centre that was reputed for something like this is ADAMS located in Oshodi. However, if you are not able to provide good instructors, then you must provide exam espos if you want to profitably remain in business. This is the sad fact and the dark side to tutorial business! Some tutorial centres even go as far as providing both espos and good teachers. Pathfinder Tutorial centre in Surulere is an example of such notorious tutorial centres. Either way, you must be able to add value to keep your students. Please note that this strategy is helpful when the students in question are preparing for external exams.

On attracting students, well that is not very difficult. Just take some very nice O’level results to the secondary schools within your vicinity. Show the results to the students there and ask them if they want their results to look like the ones you have shown them or even better. Obviously, they will all answer yes; even the lazy and silly ones amongst them will say yes too. After they have answered yes, just tell them to move straight to your tutorial centre. The next is history. No student wants an F9! In fact, I used this strategy to build a tutorial centre from a zero level to a respectable level. At the time (early 2000), I would gather O’level results from smart friends, including mine, and then go to neighbouring secondary schools to intimidate students with the results. Before speaking for long, you would see students already asking for the address of the tutorial centre. So, use this strategy to your advantage.

Finally, I give brief answers to your questions-

***You should not start the tutorial centre if you are not ready to be there all the time for the first few months. Never trust anybody! Your hard earned students might be diverted to other tutorial centres. This exact thing happened to my mentor in early 2000. He learned in a painful way. Don’t fall into the same trap.


***For experiences, please digest the above epistle.

***To me, all costs are variable—the owner of the building you use as the tutorial centre could wake up one day and say she wants to increase the rent by 15%, your teachers may say their salaries are too small as compared to those of their peers in other tutorial centres and so they demand a 7% increase.

***The charges vary depending on the area, the type of exam and the mode of teaching. I will explain.

--If your tutorial centre is located in Lekki or VI or Banana Island or Ikoyi or in other posh places on the Island, then it would be absurd if you charged anything below 4000/Month for a student preparing for local O`level exams and 15000/Month for a student preparing for foreign O’level exams like IGCSE, London GCE, SAT subject tests and co. The charges, however, should be within the range of 1300-1600/Month and 7000-8500/Month for students preparing for local and foreign O´level exams respectively, if your tutorial centre is located in a place like Surulere.

--For private tutoring, the situation becomes per hour. So, for students located in posh areas, an hourly rate of 900-2500 for foreign O’level exams should not be out of place and an hourly rate of 600-1000 for local O`level exams is just fine. Whereas, for students located in Surulere, the hourly rates for foreign and local O’level exams are 700-1500 and 450-750 respectively.

----Prior to the O’level exams, you have JSS1-SS2. The fees or hourly rates are as described below:

JSS1-3
Posh area-non private tutoring—700-1000/Month
Posh area-private tutoring--- 500-1000/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—250-500/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —200-300/Hour

SS1-2
Posh area-non private tutoring---5000-7000/Month   
Posh area-private tutoring----700-1300/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—600-1000/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —300-450/Hour


Of course, the hourly rates depend on your bargaining power and whether or not the spoilt kids like you. In my time, I was their hero. Their parents especially liked talking to me. I was on between 1000-1300/Hour. At the time, a senior colleague was on 2000-3000/Hour. I am not kidding!!

Educating the younger generation is good. There is a sense of pride and fulfillment in it. Today, I am still friends with many of my numerous ex-students. Most of them are here in the West doing very well in their various institutions. That is exactly where the sense of pride and fulfillment comes in.

Good luck

T22.


*****These answers repose on the fact that your target environment is Lagos or Abuja or PH. In addition, your tutorial portfolio should be a combination of private and non-private. The private one will help hedge against the many risks that come with the non-private one.


Prime Success Tutors, I reserve my comments about the owner.

Tumiki:
Good day,

Thank you for the advise so far but please can we have updated rate as at 2019 and also the instructors current payment

tanimola22:



OP,

I pretty much left the ‘tutorial centre’ business a few years ago. So, my knowledge of the business is undoubtedly not current.  Nonetheless, I had a good experience and a nice time whilst in the business, and so I can still remember how we did things at that time. I am always willing to share my experiences and challenges with anyone who cares to listen. For this reason, I thank you for asking these questions.

Indeed, the business can be very lucrative if you station the tutorial centre in a strategic environment and you hire smart teachers. Many people earn a decent living as owners of tutorial centres. Examples of such people are owners of Offshore Tutors, Pathfinder Tutors (one of the anchors of mind your grammar TV programme aired on NTA), ADAMS Tutors, Artic Conference, Concept Tutors, Prime Success Tutors and co. Thus, aspiring to start a tutorial centre is definitely not a bad idea.

However, it would be very profitable if you could also include morning and evening sessions. The morning sessions, 9am-1pm, will take care of students who are wishing to retake WAEC or GCE or JAMB or Post UME etc, while the evening sessions, 6pm-9pm, will take care of those students who cannot attend the afternoon sessions because a similar ‘after school lesson’ is held in their schools. We are talking about students from, say, JSS2-SS2/3. Imagine what that number will do to the size of your tutorial centre business. Moreover, the evening sessions will also take care of those adults who are already working, but do not possess complete O’level papers. You will be surprised to know that there are many of such people around. Also, there are many adults who may well just want to improve their spoken and written English language. You can provide them that service. In fact, if you neglect the morning and evening sessions, you will be doing yourself a lot of disfavor. I advise you to not limit yourself to afternoon sessions alone.

Another avenue to making money from tutorial centre business, whilst adding value to the lives of students, is to organize separate practical classes that simulate the main material covered in actual O`level physics, chemistry, agric and biology  practical sessions. Saturdays and even Sundays can serve as days when students come for the practical classes. Students pay for these practical classes separately; the fees are not part of the normal monthly lesson fees. On a bad Saturday, you could make as much as 3000Naira (100 per student) depending on the number of students in attendance or the quality of the instructors or the location of the tutorial centre or how well you are able to create publicity. The instructors usually receive a percentage of the realized money. For instance, in my time, a physics practical instructor was paid about 15% of the realized amount on a given Saturday. The remaining 85% entered the pocket of the tutorial centre owner. Hahahah.

There are several major challenges to running a successful tutorial centre. The first is attracting students and keeping them; the second is providing value. Value in this sense could mean that you are able to provide espos to aid them in passing their external exams. Value could also mean that you are able to build a team of resourceful instructors who can make average students look good and good students look very good and very students look excellent. You get what I mean. If you are not able to provide espos during major exams like JAMB, GCE, WAEC and NECO, then your teachers must be value adders. In this case, you may only be able to attract top students who are desirous of learning to your tutorial centre. An example of a tutorial centre that was reputed for something like this is ADAMS located in Oshodi. However, if you are not able to provide good instructors, then you must provide exam espos if you want to profitably remain in business. This is the sad fact and the dark side to tutorial business! Some tutorial centres even go as far as providing both espos and good teachers. Pathfinder Tutorial centre in Surulere is an example of such notorious tutorial centres. Either way, you must be able to add value to keep your students. Please note that this strategy is helpful when the students in question are preparing for external exams.

On attracting students, well that is not very difficult. Just take some very nice O’level results to the secondary schools within your vicinity. Show the results to the students there and ask them if they want their results to look like the ones you have shown them or even better. Obviously, they will all answer yes; even the lazy and silly ones amongst them will say yes too. After they have answered yes, just tell them to move straight to your tutorial centre. The next is history. No student wants an F9! In fact, I used this strategy to build a tutorial centre from a zero level to a respectable level. At the time (early 2000), I would gather O’level results from smart friends, including mine, and then go to neighbouring secondary schools to intimidate students with the results. Before speaking for long, you would see students already asking for the address of the tutorial centre. So, use this strategy to your advantage.

Finally, I give brief answers to your questions-

***You should not start the tutorial centre if you are not ready to be there all the time for the first few months. Never trust anybody! Your hard earned students might be diverted to other tutorial centres. This exact thing happened to my mentor in early 2000. He learned in a painful way. Don’t fall into the same trap.


***For experiences, please digest the above epistle.

***To me, all costs are variable—the owner of the building you use as the tutorial centre could wake up one day and say she wants to increase the rent by 15%, your teachers may say their salaries are too small as compared to those of their peers in other tutorial centres and so they demand a 7% increase.

***The charges vary depending on the area, the type of exam and the mode of teaching. I will explain.

--If your tutorial centre is located in Lekki or VI or Banana Island or Ikoyi or in other posh places on the Island, then it would be absurd if you charged anything below 4000/Month for a student preparing for local O`level exams and 15000/Month for a student preparing for foreign O’level exams like IGCSE, London GCE, SAT subject tests and co. The charges, however, should be within the range of 1300-1600/Month and 7000-8500/Month for students preparing for local and foreign O´level exams respectively, if your tutorial centre is located in a place like Surulere.

--For private tutoring, the situation becomes per hour. So, for students located in posh areas, an hourly rate of 900-2500 for foreign O’level exams should not be out of place and an hourly rate of 600-1000 for local O`level exams is just fine. Whereas, for students located in Surulere, the hourly rates for foreign and local O’level exams are 700-1500 and 450-750 respectively.

----Prior to the O’level exams, you have JSS1-SS2. The fees or hourly rates are as described below:

JSS1-3
Posh area-non private tutoring—700-1000/Month
Posh area-private tutoring--- 500-1000/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—250-500/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —200-300/Hour

SS1-2
Posh area-non private tutoring---5000-7000/Month   
Posh area-private tutoring----700-1300/Hour
Jagajaga area-non private tutoring—600-1000/Month
Jagajaga area-private tutoring —300-450/Hour


Of course, the hourly rates depend on your bargaining power and whether or not the spoilt kids like you. In my time, I was their hero. Their parents especially liked talking to me. I was on between 1000-1300/Hour. At the time, a senior colleague was on 2000-3000/Hour. I am not kidding!!

Educating the younger generation is good. There is a sense of pride and fulfillment in it. Today, I am still friends with many of my numerous ex-students. Most of them are here in the West doing very well in their various institutions. That is exactly where the sense of pride and fulfillment comes in.

Good luck

T22.


*****These answers repose on the fact that your target environment is Lagos or Abuja or PH. In addition, your tutorial portfolio should be a combination of private and non-private. The private one will help hedge against the many risks that come with the non-private one.


Prime Success Tutors, I reserve my comments about the owner.