iPeople, Arizona SU tie up for education

MANILA, Philippines — The Yuchengco and Ayala Groups, through their education joint venture iPeople, have entered into a partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) that will enable Filipino students to have access to global education including spending time in the ASU campus.

In a disclosure yesterday, iPeople school Mapúa University and its daughter schools Mapúa Malayan Colleges Laguna and Mapúa Malayan Colleges Mindanao, entered into a collaboration with ASU, which has been ranked America’s most innovative university, ahead of Stanford and MIT, over the past eight years.

With this, the Mapúa schools are now members of a global network of 15 innovative higher education institutions in America, Europe and Asia, the ASUCintana Alliance.

Chris Hill, chief strategy officer, and head of Asia Pacific at Cintana, said Mapúa schools have been chosen because of their long-standing reputation for innovation and academic excellence.

Mapúa is among the top four universities, together with UP, Ateneo and La Salle, according to the Times Higher Education World University Ranking.

Reynaldo Vea, president of Mapúa University and chairman of iPeople said the collaboration with global leader ASU and being part of the ASU-Cintana Alliance enable the school to provide better education to its students.

Under the collaboration with ASU, students of Mapúa schools have the opportunity to be immersed in international learning experiences in numerous ways.

They have access to ASU’s world-class content in all their ASU-enhanced courses and will be able to participate in signature courses through virtual classrooms.

Students can also participate in classes co-lectured by ASU faculty in the US.

Students will have many opportunities to participate in dozens of student exchange and summer immersion programs at ASU-Cintana Alliance schools.

Lorenzo Tan, CEO of House of Investments, the listed holding company of the Yuchengco Group of Companies, said the group sees education as one of its contributions to nation building.

“It is very timely that our Mapúa schools are launching this very innovative and global initiative as we celebrate the 100th birth anniversary of our past chairman, Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco, who had always advocated for making quality education more affordable for Filipinos and had forged many successful partnerships with industry leaders from around the world.”

Ayala Corp. CEO Cezar Consing said the initiative would allow young people access to education that, while Philippine centered, is also global in quality and in reach.

“We want to help develop a generation of truly global Filipinos, because our country deserves the best the world has to offer.”