From the very start, by intent and by design, we targeted the low-income market.

THE University of Pangasinan is the top-performing school in terms of passing rate, according to Reyes. The topnotcher of the 2018 Nurse Licensure Exam was an alumni. Two other graduates made it to the top 10.

We’ve often heard our parents say that the best gift that they can give their children is education. It is their hope that when their children finish their studies, they’re set for a better life ahead, hopefully with stable and good-paying jobs. And so, most would strive hard to provide for this basic need. Circumstances, however, are not always favorable. This is mostly true for those in financially challenged households who live on a day-to-day basis.

Primary, junior and senior high education are readily given by public educational systems. Tertiary education, however, is proving to be a more difficult aspiration for students who come from low-income households. State universities may be there, but these systems have limited admissions, especially when it comes to quota courses.

Where can students with these circumstances turn to?

College education can cost at around P20,000 above per semester, and this sum is encumbering especially in households with workers earning at minimum wage or less. Instead of allotting money for college, most would end up worrying more for daily expenses just to get by.

Among many educational systems in the country, Phinma Education Holdings Inc. saw the need to provide quality education for students from low-income households.

“We started with Araullo University (Nueva Ecija) in 2004, Cagayan de Oro College in 2005, University of Iloilo and University of Pangasinan both in 2009, and then Southwestern University (Cebu) in 2014. Our latest acquisition is St. Jude’s College in 2017,” Raymundo “Emon” Reyes, chief operations officer of Phinma Education Network, related to Daily Tribune.

“When we acquired these schools, they were already on the decline. They had seen their best years. At that time, our president, Dr. Chito Salazar, and chairman, Ramon del Rosario, wanted to target the poor, the students from low-income households, because, number one, they thought that these students lack access to quality education. They don’t have the financial means to study in bigger private schools and sometimes they don’t have the intellectual capacity to make the cut in state universities,” he continued.

“From the very start, by intent and by design, we targeted the low-income market,” he stressed.

Under the leadership of their president and chairman, Phinma Education Holdings Inc. continued with its business model anchored on a mission to “help the poor have a better life through education.”

Amid their acquisition of schools, whose names they retained for sentimental and practical purposes (Commission on Higher Education gave the license to operate to the school with the given name) and just affixing Phinma to it, he admitted that they’ve had had talks about going upmarket by targeting the mid-income segment.

Raymundo Reyes, Phinma Education Network chief operations officer.

However, the network remains the same way since 2004, 15 years after it first began operations.

Reyes believes that their system works. They offer more affordable tuition fee per semester. While other schools can start at around P20,000 minimum in the areas that they are in, they offer at around P15,000 to 17,000 per semester.

He also shared that apart from the relatively affordable tuition rates, they also give assistance to students in the form of scholarships. Their Handog Kaibigan scholarships are given to students from low-income households. He cited previous school years when they gave 50 percent of the incoming freshmen the said scholarship, where these students will only have to pay 50 percent of the tuition and miscellaneous fee, amounting to less than P10,000 per student.

They also have an academic scholarship called Phinma Scholars, for students who graduated at the top of their class in high school.

For this school year, about 44 percent of the network’s tertiary population are scholars. Since August 2019, Phinma Education has over 74,000 students across its network in the country.

They’ve helped 43,572 scholars, 41,565 of which are Handog Kaibigan Scholars throughout the years.

Phinma Education also banks on conducive learning practices. One is its Success Ladder Program.

“We noticed there were a number of dropouts because they don’t have a long-term view of their education or they are limited with their funds. We thought of giving them competencies that are enough that even if they drop out after one year, they are able to improve their lives by being able to get a job. We thought they need to have skills. We built several competencies in our curriculum that at the end of the year, they should be certified for these skills,” Reyes explained.

Another is its Active Learning approach where teachers only allot shorter minutes to lecture while the remaining time focuses on independent academic work in the form of discussions and exercises.

The latter earned Phinma Education a nomination at this year’s Financial Times and International Finance Corp.’s Transformational Business Awards under the “Transformational Solutions in Education, Knowledge and Skills” category.

Their academic and business approach is paying off.

Their numbers have been impressive ever since they started: 22,287 licensed professional graduates; 100 percent first-timers passing rate in 40 different licensure exams and 93 board topnotchers in Nursing, Engineering, Criminology, Education and other courses since 2004.

Reyes bore good tidings for the educational network.

“We recently concluded an agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Kaizen, a foreign equity firm that is investing solely in education. We arrived at an agreement for them to invest about P1.6 billion into Phinma Education Holdings — that’s the holding company of all the schools — to fund our further growth. ADB and Kaizen will soon be equity and strategic partners of Phinma Education. We hope through Kaizen they (students) will be given better exposure in other countries and region,” he enthused.

Cagayan de Oro College named a Center of Excellence in Criminology by the Commission on Higher Education.

Aside from striking strategic partnerships, Phinma Education has also established its presence in Southeast Asia.

Early this year, they signed a joint-venture agreement with Indonesian group Tripersada Global Manajemen to form PT Ind Phil Management.

A training center in Myanmar has also been established where students are offered short training programs on caregiving and health-related courses.

“It’s really a lot of effort. But it is gratifying and fulfilling to be able to do that knowing that everyday you’re able to help a student get better, graduate and eventually have a better life ahead,” he ended.