By Alexander Villafania
SILANG, CAVITE CITY—A new college in a largely forested area of Silang in Cavite is hoping to follow the same model that made Silicon Valley-based universities popular study grounds for high-tech startups.
The South Forbes City College (SFCC) is a new tertiary education college that was put up by the Global City Innovative College (GCIC) and will be focusing on high-end educational courses. These include business administration, hotel and restaurant management, and tourism management.
The 3.1-hectare SFCC was initially announced in 2009 and has a ten-year P300 million development plan.
So far, GCIC has spent about P50 million to put up facilities as part of the initial build up. Upon completion, the facility can host up to 15,000 students.
Future plans include adding information technology (IT) courses, metallurgical engineering, and accounting.
The school has officially started enrollment for school year 2012 to 2013.
GCIC chairman Ramon Garcia Jr. noted that the location of the new campus is due to the effective academic process employed by universities in California’s Silicon Valley, particularly Stanford University.
For one, SFCC is surrounded by maintained trees and brushes as well as quiet walkways and bike trails.
“One effective way to produce great graduates with technical or entrepreneurial skills is to make their learning environment conducive to their study,” Garcia said.
SFCC is also located near industrial and IT parks allowing for easy access to industry experts when the campus grows. Garcia noted that many Silicon Valley companies rely heavily on nearby schools to produce graduates who are skilled in specific technical requirements.
In addition, many executives of major technology and industrial firms were also graduates of Silicon Valley schools.
As such, the three current course offerings of SFCC were developed using new standards in education.
He added that SFCC’s curriculums will be modeled based on requirements of industries, particularly those partnered with the school.
Among these companies that can provide on-the-job opportunities for SFCC graduates include Cathay Land, Astoria, DFNN, Intelligent Wave, Inc., Essence Asia, and Falco Helisolutions, among others.
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