Examples of Educational Business Ideas Do you enjoy teaching others? You could make this a full-time career by opening up your own educational business.
You're reading Entrepreneur South Africa, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
There is a growing emphasis on students to improve and increase their education and on adults to continue improving their education. With this solid demand in the educational industry, you can launch a business either improving on skills or teaching brand new skills.
To ensure you know what to offer and what to cover in your business here are ten examples of educational business ideas:
1. Tutoring Students
There is growing pressure on students of all kinds to perform, whether in primary school, high school or university. If you have a passion for teaching and you have enough experience and knowledge in a specific subject, you can offer your own tutoring services.
Related:
Before you get going here is a tutoring service you can learn from to ensure your business is competitive:
Business Name: TeachMe2
Website: https://www.teachme2.co.za/
About the business:
TeachMe2 has spent 11 years perfecting their services for what their clients' children need to succeed. They offer tutors for Maths, Accounting, Science, Language, English and Statistics. They also have tutors throughout the country in most of the subjects ready to help any student.
Innovative business offering
TeachMe2 offers university tutoring in Chemistry, Economics, Engineering, Maths, Physics and Statistics. They also offer music tutors in Cello, Drums, Guitar, Piano, Singing, Violin and Viola, as well as language tutors in Afrikaans, English, French, Spanish and Zulu.
2. Home Schooling Services
If you have previous teaching experience you can create and offer lessons to numerous parents who want their children to be home schooled. Before you launch your educational business idea, first see what others in this sector are offering so you can differentiate yourself, here is an example of a successful home schooling business:
Business Name: Princeton Centre of Learning
Website: http://www.princetonlearning.co.za/
About the business:
The Princeton Centre of Learning has two locations one in Randburg focusing on learners from grade 7 to 12, and their Sandton location focusing on grades 4 to 12.
They offer smaller classes to ensure every student remains focused, and students can choose between the Impaq and Cambridge curriculums.
Innovative business offering
This educational business offers extra lessons for those who need some extra help in Maths, English and Afrikaans They have an open door policy for any students from other schools to attend their extra classes.
Related:
They also offer a winter school for all Matric students looking for intense revision sessions.
3. Teaching Your Hobby
There are a growing number of people looking to learn a new skill or activity. If you have experience in anything from martial arts to carpentry, you can offer classes in your hobby. Here is an example you can learn from to ensure you start your new educational business on the right foot:
Business Name: Bluprint
Website: https://www.mybluprint.com/
About the business:
This educational business is a subscription model, which allows customers to subscribe from anywhere in the world to learn a variety of different hobbies. Bluprint offer classes from embroidery to cooking and everything in-between.
Innovative business offering
Bluprint offers classes from experts in their field, giving their customers lesser known tips and tricks on how to achieve the best handmade items. This gives their clients exclusive access to experts and their advice and insider tricks.
4. Educational Toys
There is a growing demand world-wide for high quality educational toys for children of all ages. You could create, manufacture and sell these across the world. But before you launch ensure you investigate what your competition is doing to ensure your products are unique enough to stand out in a crowd.
Here is an example of an educational toy company you can learn from:
Business Name: Learning Tools
Website: https://learningtools.co.za/
About the business:
Learning Tools focuses on educational needs of primary and pre-primary children. Their main customers are schools, occupational and speech therapists, along with parents interested in the growth and mental development of their children.
Innovative business offering
The products sold by learning tools are sourced both locally and internationally, and the founder Sarah Ohlson de Fine, a qualified teacher, personally vets all the products for both quality and efficiency.
5. Selling Lesson Plans
Teachers from around the world are selling their lesson plans or activities from within their lesson plans to save teachers time. If you are or were a teacher, you could design and sell your own lesson plans to teachers within South Africa.
If you are trained on international syllabi you can sell your lesson plans across the world.
Before you get going, learn from this operating business to ensure you've covered all the necessary aspects of this business:
Business Name: Lesson Planned
Website: https://lessonplanned.co.uk/
About the business:
Teachers spend hours every week re-inventing the wheel making new lesson plans for their students. Lesson Planned is designed to host and share great educational resources and creates a free online platform for sharing. They offer their contributors royalties for their lesson plans and resources.
Innovative business offering
Lesson Planned not only offers a platform to sell lesson plans but also a portal for teachers to sell their lesson plans and earn a passive income.
6. Online English Teacher
There is a high demand for English teachers across the world. If you don't want to immigrate you can teach English to global students online either through a platform or on your own.
Related:
You'll need to know how one of these businesses work, so here is an example of an educational business you can learn from:
Business Name: Teachaway
Website: https://www.teachaway.com/
Established Date: 2003
About the business:
DaDa, one of the many options hosted by Teachaway, is an online one-on-one English education platform for children between 4 to 16 years. They recruit part-time English teachers throughout the year who offer engaging and interactive English classes to students using video-conferencing technology.
Innovative business offering
Teachaway also offers a variety of related services such as TEFL courses, teaching jobs abroad and numerous training courses such as digital literacy, professional development and culturally responsive teaching.
7. Employee Training
Companies want their employees to continuously grow and improve their education and skills. If you have a specialised set of skills, you can offer to train employees who need to enhance their skills. Before you launch your new training business, first you need to see what your competition is doing.
Here is an example of an educational business that you can study:
Business Name: ERC
Website: https://www.yourerc.com/training/
About the business:
ERC training offers customised training programmes across the world, including: Supervisory, harassment prevention, leadership development, customer service and lean training. They specialise in the following industries: Manufacturing, healthcare, steel and professional services.
Innovative business offering
ERC also assists companies in creating productive and optimised workplaces by offering HR resources, consulting and coaching services. They offer resources such as survey data, online HR tools, HR help desk as well as networking groups and events.
8. Online Courses
If you have specific expertise you can create an online course to help others to grow their knowledge and skills. If you ensure your courses are unique and offer invaluable information your courses will remain competitive.
Before you can launch your online courses business, you'll first need to investigate who your competitors are and what they are offering. Here is an example of an educational business you can learn from:
Business Name: GetSmarter
Website: https://www.getsmarter.com/
Established Date: 2008
About the business:
GetSmarter collaborates with universities to select, design and deliver high quality online short courses for a variety of specialised skills. Their aim is to offer their participants industry-relevant skills that are certified by the world's most reputable academic institutions.
Related:
Innovative business offering
They have expanded to include international universities and assist learners in over 139 countries around the world.
9. Skills Development Centre
If you have skills you can offer to those who are uneducated and unemployed, then you can start a skills development centre. You can also provide aspiring and existing entrepreneurs with training and a place to learn and grow.
You'll need to know more about this educational business idea before you get started, here is an example you can use to learn about the industry:
Business Name: GetOn Skills Development Centre
Website: http://www.getonskillsdevelopment.co.za/
Established Date: 2006
About the business:
GetOn Skills Development Centre is a professional environment that offers ambitious people outcome-based skills development training. They focus on skills that are requested from the local community or fulfils a need.
Innovative business offering
GetOn Skills Development Centre is known to produce high calibre staff, which gives them a favourable position with retail businesses. They also partner with corporate and retail partners to ensure their courses are presented at the required level and the content is relevant to the needs of the local industries.
10. Test Prep Coach
Students of all ages are under growing pressure to perform well, but no matter how hard they study if they don't do well in the tests and exams, they will struggle to meet their parents' expectations. This is where you come in. If you have a degree and have experience passing tests with flying colours you can help others to achieve the same.
Here is an example of a successful business you can learn from:
Business Name: Testive
Website: https://www.testive.com/
About the business:
Testive focuses on building intuitive tools that focus on a combination of people and technology to help students unlock their true potential. They set out to humanise a an aspect or a sector of education that students struggle with around the world.
Innovative business offering
They offer one-on-one tutoring using flexible adaptive learning technology combined with motivation and expertise from one of their coaches. This means that their students can use their services from anywhere at their convenience.
Related:
