American Poet William Ross Wallace was right when he wrote the poem, “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World”. The phrase indeed acknowledges the role of women in its true essence.

Women have been the pillars of their family since time immemorial, shouldering multiple responsibilities and juggling family life along with their careers. Their nurturing and empathetic nature instinctually makes them better at childcare. In fact, it is the role of motherhood that helps the females in developing skills relevant for businesses, thus forging the path to entrepreneurship.

Women entrepreneurs have become extremely significant for India’s economic growth today. Not only are they able to align their duties of both motherhood and entrepreneurship, but they also comprise almost half of all businesses owned globally. In fact, now, more and more women, even from smaller cities and towns, are breaking free from the traditional, gender-specific roles to venture into the business world. From being a minority in the entrepreneurial ecosystem almost a decade ago, today they represent 37% of the world’s total entrepreneurs. According to the statistics run by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) in 2016, nearly 126 million women started running their own businesses and 98 million have been operating established businesses. That’s 224 million women impacting the global economy.

While women are overtaking their male peers in every industry including manufacturing, food and beverage, healthcare, agriculture, biomedical, banking, beauty & lifestyle, entertainment and so on, it is the preschool industry which is witnessing a tremendous influx of women entrepreneurs. The inflow of women entrepreneurs in this space can be attributed to the early development of learning solutions for its innovative approach aimed at standardizing the largely unstructured preschool space.

People from small towns or metropolitan cities predominantly favour branded pre-school education owing to their quality and standards that are same across all centres in addition to the organized curriculum with the latest updates. This inclination towards branded preschools is also a result of educators in rural regions and small towns lacking good communication skills and training. As a result, not many women are able to take the entrepreneurial leap of starting independent preschools in their vicinities.

Flexible options like FlintoClass are emerging as a boon for women edupreneurs across India, helping them strike the right balance between running independent preschools and their homes along with increased profitability and growth. Its pay-per-child model gives independent preschools run by women edupreneurs access to a host of world-class resources, including research-based early learning curriculum, daily lesson plans, pre-packaged materials for ‘every child – every day’, online teacher training, assessments for teachers and children, a parent communication app, and class display posters. In fact, in the last one year, FlintoClass has empowered 1000+ women entrepreneurs to start and run their preschools successfully.

Women are clearly the torch bearers of strength, whether in the domestic arena or professional sphere. It is their emotionally strong nature and the ability to multi-task and takes risks and initiatives which is motivating them to willingly don the hat of an edupreneur in the early childcare learning business to shape future global learners.

(The writer is CEO, Co-founder, FlintoClass)