Vol. XXII, No. 16 [ BusinessWorld Online ]
Monday, August 18, 2008 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Mall magnate to ‘overhaul’ 108-year-old school, hike enrolment
MALL MAGNATE Henry Sy, Sr. has joined the bandwagon of taipans who have acquired private universities, recently gaining control of the 108-year-old National University (NU) in Sampaloc, Manila.
SM Investments Corp. President Harley T. Sy told reporters last week that the Sy family bought a 60% stake in the country’s first private non-sectarian school last June from the family of the late founder, Mariano F. Jhocson.
The younger Sy however did not disclose how much the transaction was worth, saying only it was purely the Sy family’s decision and did not involve any of the company’s diverse units.
But he said the Sy family has a lot of plans for the school, and wants to make it one of the country’s top universities.
Mr. Sy said the plans include a new eight-story building inside the university campus and the renovation of some old buildings.
The new building is expected to rise in a 13,000-square-meter lot, housing new classrooms; laboratories, and a multi-purpose gymnasium on top which could hold up to 1,200 people.
Aside from the new building, which is due for construction later this month, the Sy family plans to add 16 more laboratories and expand the existing ones, increase the number of classrooms to 80, attract new faculty members, and make NU more active in sports, a source said.
"We are hoping [to] make it survive for the next twenty years. NU was based on the foundation [of] providing lower-cost [but] quality education [to students] compared to [the] other schools," he said.
The Sys plan to focus on courses like Nursing, Hotel and Restaurant Management, and Pharmacy because of the "increasing demand in these courses."
The Sy family reportedly wants to "overhaul" the small university and has been pirating professors from the country’s top four universities — Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, University of the Philippines-Diliman, and the University of Santo Tomas.
As of the moment, the source said the family has no plans to increase the school’s tuition next year despite the construction of the building and new facilities to be finished by May next year.
He nevertheless said that with the new facilities, the family expects NU’s enrollees, which has gone down significantly over the years, to double next year.
"We hope to make the school competitive again," the source said.
NU opened in Aug. 1, 1900 as Colegio Filipino and was later renamed Colegio Mercantil with the introduction of business and accounting courses. It became the National Academy in 1916 and was renamed National University in 1921. The university offers courses like architecture, commerce, dentistry, education, engineering, computer science, entrepreneurship, liberal arts, nursing, and pharmacy.
NU also has a graduate school and offers elementary and high school education.
Mr. Sy said the acquisition of NU is part of the family’s "socio-civic role" in society, noting that the family wants to sponsor yearly at least a hundred scholars who can study in the school of their choice.
The mall taipan through SM Foundation has sent hundreds of students to college. To date, 630 scholars have graduated from the SM College Scholarship Program, which maintains 400 scholars at any given time.
Aside from NU, the Sys, through Sysmart Corp., hold a minority stake in the publicly listed Far Eastern University which is controlled by the Montinola family.
Other taipans already have education as part of their portfolios.
Manila Bulletin and Manila Hotel owner Emilio T. Yap serves as chairman of Centro Escolar University, which is also listed in the stock exchange.
Tobacco and airline magnate Lucio C. Tan owns the University of the East, while Alfonso T. Yuchengco controls the Mapua Institute of Technology. The Phinma Group of Ramon R. del Rosario, Jr. bought Araullo University in 2004. — KJRL
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