STUDYING at home is definitely not a walk in the park, as parents are now realizing that a teacher’s job is a labor of Herculean proportions.
According to seasoned educator Rossana Llenado, founder of AHEAD Junior and AHEAD Tutorial and Review, Filipino parents are not alone in undergoing this ordeal: “Rather, the struggle is real for all parents the world over.”
Citing recent research from the Unesco Education Center at Ireland’s Ulster University, Llenado quoted the study that as of July, homeschooling during this pandemic has been hard not just on the children, but all the more on their parents.
“Distance education for young children simply isn’t as straightforward as it can be for older students,” she said. “Most universities can transition to remote instruction with little trouble, because young adults already possess the necessary discipline as well as the basic academic foundations.”
She added, “Not so for children, who have yet to develop the same. Since neither children nor their parents are equipped to handle distance learning, even grade-school teachers who excelled in the traditional mode of instruction are struggling to help them successfully make the transition to homeschooling.”
Further research reflects this trend. Unesco’s, in particular, says, “Three-quarters of parents [75 percent] experienced difficulties during this period of school closure. The most common challenge was trying to balance working from home and supporting their children’s learning, with over three quarters [77 percent] of those currently working from home experiencing difficulties in balancing work and parenting.”
According to Llenado, the report also pointed out that many parents found it difficult to sustain their child’s attention and to cope with teachers’ expectations.
In response to this challenge, Llenado established AHEAD Junior as she has anticipated this trend for the better part of the past three decades, and is more than ready for it.
“Most kids are receptive to classroom teaching, but not to distance learning. This is where our programs come in. AHEAD Junior’s full homeschooling support and academic group tutorials don’t just provide the mental tools that can help grade school students who actually excel and even enjoy homeschooling. Our students, for example, find our Singapore Math and Level Up [Mind Mapping and Speed Reading] Programs fun, easy, and effective,” Llenado explained.
“Best of all, everything is done online, so parents can enroll their kids in our program from anywhere in the world. Since we’ve got the best teachers especially trained to help children through this challenging transition, our students won’t have trouble keeping up with school work, freeing their parents to focus on more pressing things, such as their work,” she further stated.
Meanwhile, its older entity AHEAD is a 25-year-old company offering homeschooling support to various countries worldwide: “Not many people in the country know that a Manila-based company has been successfully conducting distance learning for over 20 years. AHEAD Learning Systems is a pioneer in remote education and tutorials in the Philippines and in Southeast Asia.”
To ensure quality instruction is maintained, AHEAD recruits top graduates from the country’s premier universities to deliver its programs. As a result, she said AHEAD has successfully helped hundreds of thousands of graduating students ace their exams for admission to the most prestigious universities and highly specialized programs.
Llenado confirmed AHEAD has recently started to offer a K-12 education on top of its international learning programs.