National Book Store group ventures into education as it opens QC college

THE National Book Store Group is venturing into the education sector, as it officially launched its college in Quezon City on Tuesday.

NBS College, located in the same building as the National Book Store Quezon Avenue branch, will begin its academic year in August, with about 500 students.

In a panel discussion on Tuesday, NBS College Vice-President for Academic Affairs Cecilia I. Anido said the school offers entrepreneur-based undergraduate programs. These include Bachelor of Science (BS) in Entrepreneurship, BS Accountancy, BS Accounting Information System, BS Computer Science, BS Tourism Management, and BS Library and Information Science.

“We selected the programs that will enable them to immediately work and be productive members of society. [The selection of programs] is not just [based] on popularity,” she said.

“For example, we will be offering the BS Library and Information Science. It is not very popular but the demand is there — we need a lot of librarians for our schools but not only in the elementary, secondary, high schools, but also corporations need librarians and the demand for librarians even in abroad is there.”

Ms. Anido told BusinessWorld that unlike traditional colleges and universities, NBS College students will be immersed in their chosen field immediately.

“The students will be already exposed to work experience as early as their first year [in this college],” she added.

Ms. Anido said this includes students helping small- scale businesses in its operations such as developing a computer program.

NBS College President Adrian Paulino S. Ramos said they are already considering adding more courses in the future, such as Business Administration and Information Technology.

“We want to offer more into the Bachelors of Arts side, so definitely [that would be programs on] communications, media. We want to tie up the computer modules and technology modules and entrepreneurship modules and media-based approaches so we’ll be definitely be looking into that,” he told BusinessWorld after the media launch.

However, Mr. Ramos emphasized any new programs to be added at NBS College will still be entrepreneur-based.