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There is much more than play to the business of running nurseries and playschools
Nazia Khan

In the business of early education, as provided by nurseries, foundations are all-important. Preschool is a platform, one meant to be thorough and holistic in the preparation it provides preschoolers. In nurseries in Oman, as elsewhere, the development of oral skills and writing skills, as well as motor skills and social skills, are a given. To value-add, swimming lessons, dance classes, field trips, computer applications, and even meditation sessions, among several other activities, are also provi-ded. In an age where there is a general race to raise super kids – proficient in most activities under the sun – it is really no surprise that early education is a fast growing business.

First base
The profusion of nurseries in Oman owes its existence to demographic as well as economic factors. Explains Shamsa al Lamki, director of the Al Shumus Nursery, “Fifty per cent of the population consists of women. Majority of young women works. And a majority of young, educated women no longer live in extended families but in nuclear families. Women can’t work if their children aren’t being taken care of. And that is why the need for good nurseries and preschools continues to increase.”

The growth in the economy, fuelled by several new projects, is another contributing factor. As Andrea Probst, administrator of the National Nursery (Montessori), points out, “There are expatriates, many of them with young children, who come to Oman to
contribute to these projects.” There’s also the fact that it isn’t a particularly capital intensive business to set up.

A fair-sized nursery can start with an initial investment between RO10,000-RO20,000, and expand operations as the need arises. Says Deepa Raman, director of the Indian Nursery, “We started off in 1990 in a small way with a branch at Al Khuwayr.” Due to the demand, the Al Khuwayr branch was followed by nurseries at Darsait, Al Hail and Ghubrah in a matter of four years.

Once the requirements (See box: Primary rules) of the Ministry of Social Development – under whose aegis nurseries run – are met, the process of growing the customer base begins. Once they are off and running, the profits for nurseries are upwards of RO500 per month on an average.

Like most other services, there is a wide range in terms of price as well as quality, when it comes to children’s education. Nursery fees start from as low as RO25 per month and rise as high as RO150 per month.

There are also nurseries that double up as day care centres and creches, looking after children beyond the standard timings until their parents can pick them up, for an extra charge. At such facilities, children below the age of two are looked after by nannies and baby sitters. Meanwhile, children aged between two and four are the ones who generally form the target clientele for nurseries.

Earning curve
Veterans of the trade say that while it is not very expensive to start a nursery, it is quite expensive to keep running a good nursery, especially if you are trying to keep the groups small. Says Lamki, who started the Al Shumus Nursery in 1993, “For every group, you will need one qualified teacher and a teacher’s aide so that the children get personal attention.” She describes the business as a non-profit one. “In the sense that if you can pay the teacher’s salaries and pay yourself a salary and meet all your costs – the rent, the electricity, water – then that’s good enough. There really isn’t a profit over and above that.”

Adds Raman, “Our fees aren’t that high. And sometimes, to have a small number of children per class is not financially viable. Then there’s the fact that rents have gone up. I pay RO700 rent for my Darsait branch now, whereas initially I was paying about RO250.” With young children, maintenance is another factor. For nurseries, refurnishing and refurbishing takes place annually. Says Raziya Hakim, director of the Modern Nursery, “From toys to books and carpets, everything has to be replaced every year.” Shagufta binth Bandukwala, director of the Little Flowers Nurseries and the Tender Buds Nursery, informs that educational toys and books are quite expensive anyway, and often have to be ordered from abroad. “We can’t have damaged equipment for our students, so there’s no option but to replace.”

But when you do the math, there is money to be made in the business, without too much of a strain on financial resources to begin with. In addition to registration and term fees, nurseries also charge bus fees and, in some cases, special project fees. Meanwhile, options tend to narrow down for most parents when it comes to fees, particularly at high-end nurseries. Probst says there are parents, while impressed by the services and facilities on offer, who find nursery fees too high. Says Lamki, “High fees are an issue for most Omanis, taking into consideration that the salaries here, compared to the rest of the region, are quite low. These are not the kind of fees that the majority of Omanis can afford. These are the kind of fees that middle class Omanis can afford, when both parents are working.”

Method learning
Owing to the nature of the business, nurseries actually cater to two sets of customers – parents and children. Chithra Narayan, director of the Middle East Nursery, says that at the orientation sessions that precede the beginning of a term, a Power Point presentation for parents serves the same purpose that the colourful surroundings filled with learning aids serve for the children. Says Narayan, “It provides a reassurance that learning is a systematic as well as fun process.” But from the time the process begins, different end targets also make their presence felt. Says Bandukwala, “The aim of a preschool is to prepare children for school. That is where, within nurseries themselves, a difference in approaches comes in. Most Asian schools have written tests and interviews. On the other hand, American and European schools tend to have verbal interviews.” In a way, this tends to cause some nurseries to pick a focus area or specialisation – reading and writing skills or social and motor skills. Most nurseries walk the middle path, though.

Hakim provides the breakdown of a day at preschool. “Between classes in English, Arabic, Math, craft, computers and music, through recitation, story telling, fancy dress competitions as well as outdoor games and field trips, the children’s memory and verbal skills deve-lop.” The fact that preschoolers are at an exceptionally receptive age works to the advantage of nurseries and their teachers. Hakim gives an example. “We give parents the option that their children be taught English as well as Arabic. Some parents worry that writing from left to right one hour, followed by writing from right to left the next, would confuse children. But I have observed that most children lear-ning both the languages pick up quite quickly.”

Picking up the first learning thread might not always come easily though. Which is when the educator in charge has to take a call on whether a child is, in fact, ready for nursery. Says Narayan, “Almost all the children cry on the first day. Most children tend to settle down in a week. That is fine, and we work with them. But there are some children who keep crying, which means that they are not ready for nursery. In that case, we ask the parents to wait for some more time before sending them back to us.”

Probst informs that the National Nursery has a provision that toddlers, between one and two years of age, can come in three mornings a week, accompanied by an adult, so that they can get used to the nursery. “The difference in a normal business and the business of running a preschool is that our product is the education of the child. That product cannot be evaluated by a technical specification.”

The product also cannot be marketed in the conventional sense. Raman says she advertises fairly regularly but adds that advertising isn’t really a factor when it comes to the growth of business. Bandukwala explains the phenomenon that is familiar to those who run nurseries. “Awareness about a particular nursery, and consequently its business, grows through word-of-mouth.”

The parent trap
One of the biggest challenges educators running nurseries encounter on a day-to-day basis is the parents’ idea of children’s education. Says Lamki, “Somehow, a lot of parents think that education is about reading and writing. What we do is give a lot of pre-reading and pre-writing skills. We encourage social skills and language exposure, and a lot of constructive and structured play. Parents might think that the child is just playing or scribbling. They don’t understand that the scribbling is, for them, a big achievement.”

Hakim points out that at times avoidable problems crop up when parents expect too much. “There is always a settling down period. When a child joins late, one cannot expect instant progress.” Says Probst, “At various levels, we are educating parents as well. They have to understand that the academic achievements of a two or three year old are not the primary aspect to focus in early education. Social and emotional balance and development are the foundation for academic learning.”

To stretch that development to nurseries as a business, Lamki sees the need for training. “In Oman, we don’t have a pool of temporary teachers, freelancers, whom we can call upon when we suddenly have a lot of applicants. If a teacher falls sick, or there’s some other problem, it becomes very difficult. So, it would help tremendously if the ministry starts training preschool teachers and teachers’ aides.” Raman, who describes teachers as the factor making the nursery mix work, agrees. “In a way, they are the ones training the country’s future. It makes sense to invest in them.” Meanwhile, at the nurseries themselves, it is business and learning, as usual.