DAVAO City is becoming as an education capital not only in the Philippines but also in the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-the Philippines East Asean Growth Area (BIMP-Eaga) and the international market.
JIB Group of Schools chair Joji Ilagan-Bian said the city, for years, has a big crowd of students from India studying medical courses here.
But there is greater potential for other courses.
“We would like to shift the attention also that Davao can be a capital for hospitality, tourism, and entrepreneurship courses for people in the Asean because students now are looking for campuses which are very cosmopolitan and a good hub of learning. So we’re looking at that kind of model just like other countries like in Switzerland,” Bian said Monday, in a media roundtable discussion, in Rekado Restaurant.
“I think it is time since we have very good medical school, high schools, hotel schools that’s why we want to be known as hospitality and tourism capital of Mindanao and also BIMP-Eaga,” she added.
With this, Bian announced that they will open a new school next year, the International Management School (IMS) that will prepare students to become entrepreneurs after it noted that 40 percent of its students would want to become entrepreneurs.
The school will open on February and will accept enrollees in August next year. It will be located beside Bian’s Institute of International Culinary and Hospitality Entrepreneurship in De Jesus St., Poblacion District.
Bian, founder of the Joji Ilagan Career Center Foundation Inc., said the new internationally-accredited school intends to produce world-class, globally competitive executives and managers.
“We are offering courses using the paradigm that integrates all segments in the tourism industry (like culinary, hospitality and business),” Bian said, adding that the IMS will have a “blended teaching system” that will allow foreign industry experts and academics to do the teaching.
She explained that the blended system will allow foreign professors to teach the students, maximum of 15 to a classroom that can accommodate 40, using digital technology like teleconferencing.
The school, she said, offers a very reasonable tuition fees, a bit higher than the usual schools but students will “get the value for their money.”
“We don’t get the volume of other schools so we will really have specialization and focus on business. This will make us stand out from other hotels schools,” she said.
Among the course offerings include international certificate courses in travel management, Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship with specialized tracks in hospitality management, international certificate courses in events management and international certificate courses in cabin crew training.
“We partnered with institutions in the United States and Australia which will offer opportunities for exchange studies,” she said.
Graduates of the management school will automatically earn Australian and American International certification. Also, the school is affiliated with the London Business School of Finance and the Confederation of Tourism and Hospitality in Britain.
At present, IMS is also seeking accreditation from the International Center for Excellence, which will allow its graduates to seek employment in foreign companies.
“We are now applying to have an observer status in the center for excellence,” Bian said.