TITLE:
Parents’ Challenges in New Normal Education: A Phenomenological Perspective
AUTHORS:
Margarita Villanueva-Jaminal
KEYWORDS:
Education, Lived Experiences, Parents, Guardians, Phenomenological Research, Philippines
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.11 No.7,
July
30,
2024
ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic created a tremendous impact on the education sector around the globe through classroom shutdowns resulting from traditional face-to-face to Modular Distance Learning online with modules, radio, and television modes of learning has become the new Normal form of education. This study identifies the challenges experienced by parents and guardians in new Normal education and utilizes the phenomenological method with nineteen participants through purposive sampling. This study uncovered themes such as conflict between work and parental responsibilities, unfamiliarity with motivating learners, lack of preparedness for the new parental roles, distractions in the home environment, and weariness due to physical constraints. The findings imply that parents and guardians found it challenging to implement a new work plan for teaching as considered Para-teachers. Parents and guardians encountered challenges and found it difficult to balance their responsibilities in homeschooling their children due to their unfamiliar role as considered frontlines in educating their children and the same provider their family needs. Identifying the struggles experienced by parents and guardians in the new Normal setup will serve as the basis for school administrators and teachers to identify strategies to provide guidance and support to parents. To address the difficulties parents and guardians in Tagoloan Central School face so that school administration and teachers can develop and adjust school policies and programs that offer assistance and guidance to pupils, guardians, and parents in the new educational disruption of education. By doing so, teachers and school administrators can work towards finding flexible solutions so that schools can help and support parents and guardians in facilitating their children’s remote learning. Together, parents, guardians, teachers, and school administrators can ensure that children receive a quality education, regardless of the circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic.