The demands of the job market in the US and across the world are rapidly evolving. Today, industries are seeking highly skilled personnel to suffice their multidisciplinary requirements. Our century-old educational system, however, has hardly evolved over the years to keep up with the changing demands of the job market. After-school children’s education franchises such as CompuChild are seeking to align the skill-sets of students to match with the requirements of the fast-changing work force by offering enrichment programs focused on various relevant and necessary skills that are not addressed in the classroom. With its lowest cost, high quality, and unique focus on entrepreneurial education, CompuChild stands out among all children’s education franchises.
Shubhra Kant (President of CompuChild) believes that the definition of an entrepreneur is not just limited to someone who starts a business. In fact, anyone who identifies a problem, finds a viable solution and works towards implementing their innovative ideas is an entrepreneur. One needs to have an entrepreneurial mindset in order to thrive in a fast-changing business and work environment. “In anything, change is the only constant and we need to promote constant learning from a very young age,” she adds. With its programs, CompuChild aims to kindle the spirit of constant learning, innovation, critical thinking, and collaboration for the social good among students at a very young age.
Relevant Education and Training
CompuChild’s unique after-school enrichment programs are aligned with the evolving technological needs of the 21st century. The franchise realizes that while technology education is essential, it alone is insufficient to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. With that realization, CompuChild’s enrichment programs for children are focused on four key themes—technology, financial awareness, communication, and ethics. Focusing on these themes, CompuChild is well-prepared to provide relevant education and training to children irrespective of what they chose to do later in their lives.
Focusing on STEAM and Entrepreneurship
Synonymous with its name, CompuChild was started in 1994 to provide computer education to children. Through the years, the franchise broadened its focus to STEM and STEAM-based after-school enrichment programs. Since Shubhra took over the leadership of CompuChild in 2019, the franchise has been focused on providing entrepreneurial education for children.
CompuChild envisions that technology will transform society and the workforce so dramatically that every future professional will need to think like an entrepreneur. The company aims to expose children to entrepreneurial thinking from the beginning, so they do not find it hard to change quickly and adapt to newer technologies and ways of thinking. CompuChild’s mission is to nurture ethical and entrepreneurial kids through after-school enrichment. It takes pride in being the first franchise to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial STEAM™ (a COMPUCHILD trademark).
Maximizing the Benefits of Multi-sensory Learning
Various research publications have highlighted the benefits of multi-sensory teaching methodologies. While CompuChild stands apart from its peers due to its unique emphasis on entrepreneurial education, its teaching methodology, which is based on creating a rich multi-sensory learning environment is also a key differentiating factor.
Every curriculum designed by CompuChild is based on maximizing multi-sensory learning. It’s Introduction to Machines and Lego® Robotics Engineering programs for pre-school and elementary school children have been designed to promote learning through hands-on model building. The franchise’s Impactful Blogging, Stop Motion Animation, and Video Game Creation programs are fully project-based, where students work on a project from start to finish.
Several Logic and Critical Thinking Programs offered by the franchise make use of proprietary team-based games and quizzes that students actively participate in. Additionally, CompuChild’s Ethics focused programs are based on the Socratic Method of learning, which keeps students fully engaged.
Best Low-cost Franchise
CompuChild strongly believes that quality education should be available to all. As a leading after-school program franchise, CompuChild strives to offer the most relevant enrichment programs for children, keep costs at a minimum, and provide the best training to its franchisees. While making enrichment programs affordable, CompuChild has not compromised on the quality or the relevance of its curriculum. Quality and franchisee satisfaction have been the two traits of CompuChild that have earned it a place in the prestigious annual ‘Best of the Best’ list of the Franchise Business Review more than ten times as of 2020. CompuChild has also been recognized as the “Best Low-cost Franchisee to Buy” by Franchise Business Review 2020.
CompuChild enables its franchisees to operate on a capital-light business model. Due to extremely low liquid cash requirements, franchisees interested in providing entrepreneurial STEAM™-focused children’s education can start to operate a CompuChild franchise business under $30,000.
The best feature of CompuChild’s time-tested franchise model is that the franchisees don’t need to own or rent a dedicated center to operate, which results in a lower fixed cost for starting this business. “Our equipment selection, curriculum development, software choice, and class schedules have been carefully thought out to promote a low-cost operation for all our franchisees,” asserts Shubhra. With its constant focus on children’s entrepreneurial education, cost effectiveness, and franchisee training, CompuChild strives to be the lowest-cost and best-quality children’s education franchise.
Navigating through the Impact of the Pandemic
Before the pandemic, CompuChild was involved with in-person children’s after-school enrichment programs. However, the lockdowns imposed due to the pandemic resulted in the halting of these programs. While several educational franchises found it difficult to cope with this crisis, CompuChild was able to pivot to the changes nimbly. “Heeding to the pandemic, we launched online programs which were very successful in engaging our students,” says Shubhra.
Being the President of CompuChild, Shubhra performs multiple roles and has won several awards and recognitions for the same. However, she reckons that helping her franchisees navigate through the debilitating impact of the pandemic in 2020 has been her biggest achievement. The pandemic demanded a dynamic form of leadership. Shubhra, being a mindful leader and a previous CompuChild franchisee herself, understood the problem and was quick to adapt to the changes. She swiftly pivoted to delivering online education. The company also experimented with modified class structures–where its franchisees allowed students to check out robotic kits that they could use to build models at home while the instructors helped them with programming and engineering concepts remotely via the use of online tools. CompuChild also allowed distressed franchisees to defer their monthly fees for 3 months.
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