PHINMA Education Network Among Institutions Shortlisted in the 2019 Financial Times and IFC’s Transformational Business Awards

PHINMA Education, a growing network of schools in the Philippines, recently joined the list of businesses shortlisted for the education category of this year’s Financial Times and International Finance Corporation’s Transformational Business Awards.

The awards, participated in by 278 organizations with programs in 126 countries, recognize, showcase, and reward private sector innovation, impact, replicability, financial viability and sustainability across key areas identified in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). PHINMA Education was among the top seven nominated under the category “Transformational Solutions in Education, Knowledge, and Skills.”

PHINMA Education was recognized for its unique academic and business model, which supports underprivileged students seeking to pursue a college education, most of whom face financial and academic limitations in pursuing a college degree. At large, PHINMA Education by intent and design, serves students of low-income families which at present is at 75% of the total population of the network.

“Our mission is to make lives better through education by providing opportunities for all especially those who need it the most. We recognize that we can only do that by developing inclusive and responsive approaches to education and learning.,” said PHINMA Education President, Dr. Chito B. Salazar.

Among the solutions that the network employs, its Parallel Classes instructional model and its “Handog Kaibigan” (HK) program were highlighted as transformational innovations.

A form of active learning, Parallel Classes engage students in independent academic work for about 75% of the class time thereby changing the teacher’s primary role from that of a lecturer to a facilitator-coach. The Parallel Class structure provides greater teacher loading efficiency in PHINMA Education schools, which in turn, allows the network to offer more affordable tuition and fees to the market. PHINMA Education drew inspiration from the Dynamic Learning Program first implemented at the Central Visayan Institute Foundation by Christopher and M. Victoria Bernido when it developed its “parallel classes” model.

Meanwhile, PHINMA Education’s HK program extends access even further by providing a 50% discount on tuition and fees. Effective for the entire duration of study and not dependent on grades, the program allows students in even lower income brackets to attain a college education. As of school year 2018-2019, there are about 10,000 HK students, representing 30% of the network’s total college population.

These many initiatives have altogether resulted in better employment rates, better success rates in professional licensure exams, and in turn, a growing student population for PHINMA Education. Enrolment for college freshmen doubled from 8,000 in 2009 to 18,000 in 2018. The number of students completing their program also increased in the past five years, from 600 to 700 annual graduates to over 1,000 per school. Since its founding, PHINMA Education has produced over 20,000 licensed professionals.

“We still have a long way to go in making education in the country more accessible and in making more lives better for our kids and their families. There are just so many young people who deserve more opportunities to a good education,” said Salazar.