Teachers, especially those in Nigeria, are left with the thought that their proprietors/employers underpay them; considering how much they charge as school fees, and how much they end up paying them monthly. But is this really true? At TeachersAroundMe.com, we don’t think so in some cases.
We believe teachers should understand that a school is not just an educational institute, but also a business venture, and a business requires finance and lots of operational expenses to stay alive. You need to remember that schools only charge once in 3 months, and thrice a year, but they pay salaries for 12 months.
Let us get to the arithmetic of it:
- School Fees (3 months): N250,000
- Students Population/Customers: 100 x N250,000 = N25 million
- Teacher’s Salary: N80,000 x 4 months = N320,000
- Number of Teachers: 10 x N80,000 x 4 months = N3.2 million
- 2 Vice-Principals = N150,000 x 2 x 4 months = N1.2 million
- Principal: N200,000 x 4 months = N800,000
- Other Staff eg. Gateman (N40,000 x 4 months = N160,000), 3 Cleaners (35,000 x 3 = N105,000 x 4 months = N420,000), Driver (N40,000 x 4 months = N160,000), Receptionist (N50,000 x 4 months = N200,000), 2 Administrators (N55,000 x 2 = N110,000 x 4 months = N440,000), Accountant (N120,000 x 4 months = N480,000), I.T Personnel (N110,000 x 4 months = N480,000) etc.:
- Proprietor/Management Team Salary: N250,000 x numbers of them x 4 months (WE REALLY CAN’T PUT A NUMBER ON THIS)
- Annual Rent: N5 million
- Monthly Bills, Taxes & Other Operational Costs:N1m+ <> x 4 months (N4 million more or less)
TOTAL = N16,680,000
Lien Balance = <N8,140,000.
We need to understand that this analysis has some missing figures, such as the management team salary because we really cannot really give an estimate on the numbers in the team, it could be 2, 5, 10 or more people or less. The estimated salary times and the numbers of management team/directors would make the lien balance lesser than what we have above.
We also cannot be specific with the numbers of staff (a school can have a nurse, librarian, counsellor etc. whose salaries are not included in the above analysis, so the staff numbers are most likely to be more than the aforementioned), monthly bills, taxes, & operational expenses, because each school is unique to have its own; we are only trying to be analytical with the impression that some parents and teachers have about teachers not being paid up to a student’s school fees. No school or business owner would call all her employees and customers to discuss its finances. You can only guess & speculate. You can’t know its accuracy, only the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and or some members of the Accounting & HR team can have a fair understanding of the financial status of the organization.
We also should not forget that many businesses are in to make profits for so many reasons not limited to:
Growth
Expansion
Satisfaction
Are you still thinking the school has about N8,140,000 in its account? Of course not, it is way lesser than that if you read the last two paragraphs correctly. You should also have in mind that not all the 100 students in this analysis would pay (complete) school fees. At the end of the day, based on this analysis, the school might have N1 million or less at hand. They might even have facilities (bank loans) to settle.
Running an education based can be one of the hardest ventures ever. This is not to say that there might be some business/school owners who rip their employees off.
We believe this has helped you to have a clearer and better understanding of Income & Expenditures in the business/school setting.
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