Education tourism niche gaining ground in Cebu

CEBU, Philippines - Education and visa consultancy provider—Human Factor Training and Consultancy is strengthening its efforts to push Cebu’s bid as the preferred educational hub for foreign students, helping Cebu to position itself as the center for education tourism in the Philippines.

In an interview with Human Factor Training and Consultancy Justiniano J. Medel Jr., he said that there is now a growing interest from students from other countries to consider Cebu as their preferred destination to study diploma courses, such as in the medical field, business management, and maritime courses.

The company is now active in marketing Cebu to other countries like Russia, Middle East, Nigeria, and other countries to promote the good educational facilities in Cebu, as the province is also moving to capture the high growth potential of “education tourism.”

The company is starting to coordinate with the major universities here, like the University of San Carlos, Southwestern University, Cebu Institute of Medicine (CIM), and University of the Visayas, to reinforce its inbound education consultancy program.

“We want to be the Philippine representative for education [consultancy] in other countries,” said Medel in a press conference.

Economist Fernando Fajardo earlier urged Cebu to capitalize on its potential in education tourism, saying while the tourism growth in Cebu is facing an edgy route with the competition from within the domestic destinations and abroad, it has to tap fully its niche in “education tourism.”

At present, Fajardo said Cebu’s strength in “education tourism” is not properly coordinated, although there is a constant interest from other non-English speaking countries to consider Cebu as the preferred destination.

Medel underscored Cebu’s potential to attract more maritime students from other countries, as maritime schools are have already proven its world-class standards through the deployment of thousands of maritime graduates now working in different shipping and maritime companies around the world.

Medel also mentioned the high interest of foreign nationalities in taking ESL (English as Second Language) course in Cebu, not only from the Korean nationals, but also from other non-English speaking countries.

He said some of the foreign students would want to study a diploma course here, at the same time learn English.

On the other hand, aside from pushing its inbound education constancy service, the company is also promoting off-shore studies for Filipinos as the easiest pathway to get a visa.

At present, Human Factor is partnering with educational institutions in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, as these countries have implemented easy requirements for foreign students to get educational Visa at the same time allowed to work while studying.

Meanwhile, aside from providing inbound and outbound educational consultancy service, the company is also active in providing human resource needs locally, specifically in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector.

According to Medel, the company has also strengthened its capability to train people to easily get the high-paying jobs in outsourcing and other industry sectors.

At present, the firm has existing partnerships with companies such as Aegis, Teleperformance, ePerformax, intellmed, United Healthcare Group, Universal Tech, among others.  (FREEMAN)