WHILE the country already has numerous computer schools, a new educational institution hopes to differentiate itself by positioning itself as an "Internet career development center."
"We try to identify specific career tracks, based on the career paths students want to take," Roberto Estebanlar, executive vice president of iAsia Academy, told INQ7.net.
Estebanlar stressed that the institution wants to make Internet career training more pervasive in the Philippines. He explained that the school offers flexible in-house financing packages for public students, apart from value-added services such as job placement.
"The mission of iAsia is to establish the Filipino as the top choice as IT professionals," Estebanlar stressed. "Our strategy is to bring down prices. Normally, only professional workers can get this kind of training."
He stressed that students will get the same kind of world-class training at iAsia as professionals in other countries through the Carnegie Technology Education (CTE) program, developed in conjunction with one of the world's top software schools, Carnegie Mellon University. The school also offers certified training courses in Oracle, Sun, Adobe and Microsoft solutions.
The academy now has around 20 employees, and has its training facilities at The Enterprise Center in Makati City.
Estebanlar explained that iAsia would not go through the usual expansion route, but would instead partner with established schools and universities.
"We don't really intend to open branches in other parts of the country, unless there is really demand for that. Instead, we'd like to partner with schools and help develop their curricula even further," he said.
He said that iAsia is already talking with potential partners and has chosen Northern Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Cebu and Davao as the pilot sites. He said that iAsia aims to have the CTE programs implemented in these partner schools by the start of the academic year in 2002.