Written: By Marvellous Adejumo
Teachers in Africa have consistently been paid much lesser than other professionals in Africa; their earning is not commensurate with the effort and energy they put into nurturing and molding lives. In African countries particularly Nigeria, Congo, Gambia, and Ghana where teachers earn significantly lesser than other workers, there is an emerging need for alternative sources of income. Below is a list of ways you can earn extra money online as a teacher.
- Teach Online
One significant opportunity the digitalized world of today has afforded the teaching profession is the possibility of bringing the traditional classroom into a digitalized space. You now have the opportunity to teach much more students than the ones in your regular classrooms from various countries around the world depending on how well you brand and market yourself. There are two ways to teaching online:
- One way to teach online is via the utilization of e-learning platforms which are in the need of the services of tutors for students who have enrolled with them. Here, you earn depending on what they decide to pay you for each lesson.
- The second way to teach online is by creating your own e-learning website where you will be the one in charge of the curriculum and teaching method, teaching schedule, and most importantly you will be the custodian of what you earn depending on what you charge your students.
- Sell Courses
To earn more as a teacher, you should also consider selling courses online. To sell courses online, you need to consider a niche/particular area or subject where you are knowledgeable and which students will be interested in learning. You should then consider how to teach it in ways that will help your potential students understand what you teaching. Your online courses can be created as PDF documents, PowerPoint, texts, audios and videos which will be collated together. After creating your unique course, you will have to consider where to sell it. You can either sell it on e-learning platforms like Udemy, Teachable, Thinkific which are most times free but vary in features or you can sell it on your e-learning website.
- Sell E-books
This is another way to earn more as a teacher though it’s similar to selling courses online. It’s more like an extension of online courses because you can turn your courses into e-books as another format of your knowledge base. In a situation where you don’t have a prior online course to turn into an e-book, you will have to think about areas you’re well versed, which you can teach better than anyone and which your potential students will be eager to learn about. Create this as an electronic book after which you can decide to sell it on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Payhip, or you can sell it on your e-learning website.
- Sell Lesson Plans and Teaching Materials
As teachers, it’s imperative to create lesson plans and teaching materials that will make each lesson engaging, fun and challenging in order to propel in-depth learning for students. At the end of every term or academic year, there will always be numbers of ideas, lesson plans, materials which you have only shared with your students in the classroom. Instead of letting all these creative teaching ideas, lesson plans and materials get wasted, you can decide to sell it through online marketplace like TeachersPayTeachers, TES. These platforms allow teachers to sell lesson plans, educational materials to other teachers and keep earning by and by, you can also join and become a seller.
- Monetize your Talents
This way of earning more money has to do with rendering your services with respect to what you are an expert in doing. It’s about offering your expertise in skills like copy-writing, book-editing, translation, graphic designing etc. directly to people who want it and want to pay for it. You can offer your expertise as a freelancer and get paid via platforms like Fiverr, Upwork. Get started through any of these platforms and let your talents add to your earning.
These are sure ways to earn more money as a teacher. Step up your game, explore these ways and say goodbye to your days of low income.
Have you ever tried earning through any of these ways before, you can share your experience here, or if you just want to try any of these, you can also let us know which one you going to try first. Keep exploring!
Keep earning!
