PHINMA Education, the education subsidiary of Filipino-owned conglomerate PHINMA, vowed to give quality education to its more than 120,000 enrollees for School Year 2022-2023.

Chief Learning Officer Francis Larios said that despite the challenges faced by educators in the past two years, retention across their 10 schools has remained constant. He credits this to strategies tailored to the underserved market.

In an interview in ANC Market Edge, Larios said that during the pandemic, PHINMA Education built flexible and remote and distance learning to cater to the majority of students who come from low-income families.

By partnering with telecom giants Globe and PLDT Smart, PHINMA Education also distributed free sim cards with 10GB of mobile data monthly to students across the network. Students also received remote coaching from teachers, collaborated with classmates and accessed learning applications at no additional cost.

To ease the students’ financial burden, PHINMA Education increased the number of Hawak Kamay Scholarships which reduced tuition fees by as much as 75 percent based on the student’s capability to pay.

It also partnered with financing company Bukas to provide mobile phones at affordable terms to students who needed them.

In 2021, they launched KANLUNGAN, a free individual therapy program for both students and employees.

“College is still one of the best ways to improve the lives of students. Except that sometimes, our students might not reach the end and we have to find a way for them to move forward,” Larios said, adding that they are flipping the system by building not just the usual career pathway at the end of college, but also different career pathways before they graduate.

In mid-August, PHINMA Education welcomed over 120,000 students across nine schools in the Philippines and one in Indonesia. More than 61,000 are new students.

PHINMA Education boasts a 75 percent board passing rate for first-time takers across courses such as Nursing, Criminology, Medical Technology, Education, and Engineering. It has also produced 122 board topnotchers and over 26,000 professionals since 2004. But, Larios admits, for many of the network’s students, graduation is not always attainable.