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At its simplest a Self-Sufficient School is one that generates
enough income to cover the costs of providing a quality education
to its students.
It's a hands on approach
Vocational schools have long appreciated the
benefits of ‘learning-by-doing’ – no one
ever learnt to drive a tractor from reading a book! Skills
are often best learnt on-the-job, and improve by practice.
Generating income
Where refining skills is aimed at delivering a product or service of
marketable quality – from honey or maize to running a hotel – the
natural next step is to actually make and sell this product or service.
Schools rarely have difficulties finding a use for income
generated in this way!
Scaling up
Although it requires a substantial effort to create a demonstration
business environment for teaching purposes, it is often
proportionately not much harder to produce and deliver the same product or service
on a much larger scale.
In developing countries where
commercial enterprises often lack the very skills being taught,
scaling up can justifiably result in greater productivity
than the market norm.
Self-Sufficiency
When each activity across a school’s curriculum is taught
in this manner – being effectively run as a profitable
business unit – financial self-sufficiency becomes a
realistic prospect.
Value as a Model
Self-sufficiency is really just a means to an end - to providing
a quality vocational education that opens up prospects for
graduates to earn a decent living, and create jobs for others.
There is another valuable benefit of maintaining
self-sufficiency as a goal – institutional fitness.
Self-sufficient schools are denied the complacency
of institutions which can rely on regular funding irrespective
of performance. Like regular businesses they must adapt, innovate,
and constantly renew themselves just to stand still.
The discipline this requires serves
as an inspiration to students, and ensures of necessity that
the education they receive is focussed on skills from which
they can earn a livelihood.
We've now shown with our fully Self-Sufficient School in Paraguay that Education That Pays For Itself is more than a theory - it is a great way to build a strong institution that creates economically successful graduates from the children of low income families.
So what next?
Join Our Network: The TeachAManToFish network now spans more than 80 countries, and represents a wide range of over 700 individuals and organisations interested in finding new ways to increase the availability of high quality agricultural education in developing countries by making it financially sustainable. - join now!
Dig Deeper: The resources section of the website has downloadable guides and links to useful organizations covering education, entrepreneurship, agriculture and more - read more
Tell The World: Let your friends & colleagues know about and our vision of 'Education That Pays For Itself' - click here
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