By Omowumi Adeoye
My Mind
If you are interested in children, if you are interested in setting up a school for children either for profit or for non-profit, I enjoin you to read my column regularly. I saw that there is a huge deposit of experience I have acquired in this business of educating children and it is good that I share same with the world.
Why I Do What I Do
First, I need to let you know I have always been a business minded person. I like to turn a quid to two. Getting people to buy things and getting money out of them whilst making them happy is the real deal for me.
Second, I should let you know up front that I am a very spiritual person and most of my decisions in my life are either spiritually motivated or inspired spiritually.
Third, I have passion for educating children. The passion to see children educated is a strong force that pushes me to do what I do and it is one of the major reasons I am in the business of educating children.
Having the knowledge of the above two factors will allow you to understand the way I think and why I do what I do. Now, let’s go. Welcome to my world; the world children’s education.
How I Came Here
I will take you through the journey, step by step.
I have not always wanted to have a school for children in my heart of heart. The first thing I always wanted was to do business. I wanted to trade. I Love trading. I have never thought of engaging in the business of educating children when I started thinking of the future right after my secondary school days. It was always business, business and business. After my secondary school education, a certain Mr. Lawal, a neighbor and good friend of my dad encouraged me to go and study an educational course. He thought it would allow me have time for family. How I took the advice at first instance will be a subject for another day. Eventually I pursued an admission in the Oyo State College of Education and today I hold a National Certificate in Physical and Health Education. I am grateful I heeded that advice.
Then the story of my venture into the world of education started. First, regardless of my education as a teacher, I still wanted to do business when I left the college of education so after I graduated from the college of education I went back to trading. I was dealing in chemical and automobile lubricants. It was a lucrative business. The challenge for me was that I kept getting into one problem after another until I got tired and got a salary job (not teaching) and had other kinds of problems before I eventually got a teaching job.
The Problems
The problems that chased me into teaching were legendary. They were so focused and single minded, they had one agenda, “chase her out of business.” Before I was chased into teaching, trading was good at the beginning. I had tried my hands on many wares before I settled for automobile chemicals and lubricants. I sold garri and groundnut, mobile phone recharge cards and a couple of other things.
When I started dealing in automobile chemicals and lubricants, life was good at the beginning. I started as a store manager in a fuel station. I take in the goods and sell and I buy some of the goods myself at wholesale to resell to make something on the sides. The problem was that at the end of every month, the goods did not add up. The guys who deliver the goods always deliver the goods but at the end of sale, the capital would not even show needless to say the profit. It would never add up. Every month, more than half of my salary would go towards reimbursements of shortfalls. I probably only got my full salary in the first month. I resigned. I started dealing in the products on my own. But I had no money to take a shop. Somebody offered me her shop so that we could split the rent. After about a couple of months she started misbehaving by locking me out of the shop; she changed shop keys without telling or giving me my spare. I left her shop. I started selling by the road side.
The Hawks
The road side stint was full of tears, anguish and restlessness. We roadside traders were always on the lookout for task force officials raiding. It was like a jungle. I was a hen, my goods were my chicks and the task force officials were the hawks, always ever hovering about. The rumours were the worst. They are coming! They are coming! We would begin to run helter-skelter. By the time the whole of my goods were seized twice (I mean the whole capital and profit gone), I needed no one to tell me I needed to find a solution to my predicament. I left the trading totally.
First Teaching Job
I had a classmate back in college, his name is Hassan. We kept in touch and we talked often. He worked in a school at the time and he looked like the most relaxed guy in the whole wide world. He wanted to pursue a university degree and he told me his school needed a replacement for him, he thought I should take the job. I did.
Then the story of “this business of educating children” started.
