Corporate investments in education
There have been a growing number of corporate investments into educational institutions. Way back in the 1970s, Dr. Lucio Tan of the Lucio Tan group of companies invested in the University of the East. Successive waves of investments then ensued, with the entry of the Bulletin group of Don Emilio Yap into Centro Escolar University, then by the aggressive pursuit by the Phinma group of acquiring Araullo University in Cabanatuan and then successive acquisitions of schools both in Manila and in Mindanao. The Henry Sy group, having had a minority interest in Far Eastern University then proceeded to purchase the majority of National University, which it then transformed into a sports group of Eusebio Tanco also invested in schools and hospitals.
There is a need for the private sector to get more involved in education. Many schools, such as La Salle and Ateneo have been beneficiaries of massive amounts of largesse from patrons such as the groups led by the Razon, King, Tan and Villar families.
In particular, the Villar group and the University of the Philippines seem to have overcome the mass of government red tape on donations and proceeded to donate future campuses. UP sports a spanking new campus made possible by the Henry Sy group and other generous alumni to house the business school, engineering and law colleges.
While philanthropy is a likely major consideration, there is no doubt that the efforts of the private- public sector have resulted in the betterment of Philippine education. And then again, while investments in education are by nature a long- term one, there is no denying that the public relations value of such investments denote that a group has “arrived” in the Philippine business firmament.
The Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) is an NGO that is involved in the betterment of Philippine business education. One of its efforts is the annual measurement of the quality of finance education through the holding of the Inter-Collegiate Finance Competition ( ICFC), which has been held for the last 20 years. To no one’s surprise, the best in the competition are the Manila-based top tier schools. However, in one particular competition, the University of the Philippines- Iloilo Campus dominated. This was the first and only time that a Visayas-based school topped the competition.
Expanding the totality of the competition, it appears that Mindanao-based institutions lag behind the rest of the country in quality business and finance education. Only one Mindanao-based school had placed with any consistency in the top 10 of the competition, and this is the Mindanao State UniversityIligan Institute of Technology.
Another interesting observation as a result of the ICFC is that government schools such MSU- IIT, Tarlac State University, Central Luzon State University and the Batangas State University have been performing very credibly in this difficult competition.
This then leads to the conclusion that for best effects, private support for business education are best deployed in Mindanao.