Ahead prepares young for competitive world
BAGUIO CITY—In the summer of 2010, Debbie Pulido, a former teacher, would drive her son, Adrian, who was studying at a Baguio private school, to a tutorial and review center in Metro Manila. Mother and son had one goal: that Adrian would pass the entrance exams to the country’s top three universities.
Their efforts paid off. Adrian passed the entrance exam to the Ateneo de Manila University, one of the country’s top three universities that include the University of the Philippines and De La Salle University. He also passed the entrance exam to the University of Sto. Tomas, one of the country’s leading universities.
Since his parents gave him free choice where to enroll, he chose Ateneo. He is now in his second year, taking up applied math in finance. His course, his mother says, is so difficult that only the top 15 percent of the class would choose such field.
Reflecting on her sacrifices and difficulties of having to travel to Metro Manila just to let her son attend review classes, Pulido finally thought of other similarly-situated parents.
“There must be parents who want their gifted children to enter the country’s top three universities but are hindered by the cost of having to go to a Manila review center,” she says.
Burdened by that thought, she recently applied for a franchise of the Quezon City-based Ahead Tutorial & Review, a leading tutorial and review center in the country, which prepared her son for the Ateneo entrance exam.
During the last four years, the management of Ahead had wanted to open a branch in Baguio, being Northern Luzon’s educational hub. “But we have been looking for the right person with the right values,” says Rosanna Llenado, founder, president and managing director of Ahead.
Besides competence, Llenado says that person must have the heart and the passion to work while serving others.
“Fortunately, we found that person in Debbie (Pulido),” she says. “We found the perfect person for the perfect services we are offering.”
Llenado and her team from Metro Manila were in the summer capital on April 20 to open Ahead’s Baguio branch under Pulido.
In earlier decades, tutorial and review centers were unheard of. But as the world has become highly competitive, many parents believe that a great education is the best legacy they could give their children, Llenado says.
But the need to prepare children for this highly competitive world has become more challenging to parents as children’s study discipline has been weakening, she says.
The reason is obvious. Many parents complain that the mass media, mobile phones, the Internet and other digital gadgets compete for children’s attention and get in the way of their studies.
Besides improving children’s aptitude, skills and competence, Ahead seeks to instill the necessary discipline children need to develop good study habits, Llenado says.
Discipline and good study habits children acquire will not only help prepare them for entrance exams and better class performance, but also for life in the long run, she says.
Once children’s aptitude and abilities are developed, they could aim to land in the country’s top three universities, she says.
According to Llenado, many top companies prefer to hire graduates from UP, Ateneo and La Salle.
Ahead, now on its 18th year with various branches in major cities nationwide, is ahead of other tutorial and review centers, which mushroomed in recent years, because it chose to find its niche in catering to the country’s brightest, Llenado says.
She notes that only 10 percent of the hundreds of thousands of applicants every year get into the top three universities. She adds they must have very good grades because top schools do not just consider their scores in the exams but also their grades in high school.
“It is every parent’s dream for his or her child to be counted among this 10 percent,” she said. “This is where we come in. Our mission is to help these students secure a bright future.”
Even poor parents, she said, would do all they could to let their children be tutored at Ahead.
“Since investing on their children’s education in the country’s best schools is their dream, even simple vendors would save money to enlist their children in our tutorial and review center,” she says.
The same thing is true with preschool. Llenado says preschool entrance tests are so competitive that only 350 of around 6,000 pass.
Llenado says parents are the best tutors to their children.
“(But) let’s face it: Today’s curriculum is tougher than 15 years ago,” she says. “It’s better to get help than try to teach your children something you don’t entirely know.”
To live up to its mission of securing the future of the country’s brightest, Ahead maintains a roster of top-caliber tutors and lecturers who come from top universities.
“They (tutors and lecturers) are young, dynamic and able to relate well with your child,” Llenado says.
Over the years, Ahead has expanded its services. Tutors, lecturers and staff continue to train under the company’s training division, called Ahead Professional Network. They in turn have trained school managers nationwide in cooperation with the Philippine Business for Social Progress.
Ahead has also partnered with a number of international companies that share its passion for excellence. “Through these partnerships, Ahead has further improved its programs and materials, bringing them to par with the best in the world,” the company’s website states.
While Ahead has grown, with a potential of establishing franchises overseas, the company offers some free services such as “mind mapping” and speed reading.
Mind mapping is a technique of making a textbook, for instance, into something visual through line drawings. This technique enables a student to understand and remember complex ideas from a textbook, Llenado says.
Other outfits charge P20,000 or more for speed reading and mind mapping sessions. “But we offer these services for free. In business, not everything is money and profit,” Llenado says.