Learner-centred, low cost private schools will be made possible by the growing homeschool community
Unhappy parents
Many parents are dissatisfied with mainstream school provision, but feel like there is no available alternative. They cant afford private schools, and don’t want to home school.
It is possible that over the next 5+ years, homeschool communities will provide a viable alternative. Today, co-learning spaces serving home school communities are appearing the world over. See examples in USA, Spain and India. These are places that homeschoolers go to learn together, large spaces designed and equipped for learning.
Next gen school
Once a country reaches a critical mass of co-learning spaces, expect to see a business spring up that runs low cost private schools in these places. They will be far more affordable than most private schools today.
Cheaper
The largest costs of a school are salary and space. Space at the co-learning centres will be rented according to how many students attend the school, removing prohibitive set up and maintenance costs.
Cost of teaching is halved as expert instruction is delivered online, where 1 teacher can service many students. That teacher may well get paid more than their traditional classroom contemporaries.
Better
Many learning products that exist today are demonstrating that online learning experiences can be more engaging than in person. Lamda, Outschool and Galileo provide examples of how it might look. Facilitators without teaching qualification will be on premises for provision of in-person care.
The education style will likely be influenced by the interest-led approach adopted by a growing proportion of homeschooling families today, and is what many state (and private) run schools lack. Millions of parents that are disenchanted with the state school offering but have not been able to afford private school (or don’t think it is much better), and do not want to home school, will have a viable alternative.
Get in touch
Entrepreneurs and investors have found that working with today’s K12 education system is unlikely to create impact at scale within a reasonable period of time. At Emerge, we want to talk to entrepreneurs creating online challenger schools that are also cracking the nut of physical provision for the student.
