International school boosts Lapu’s tourism appeal

CEBU, Philippines — Newly opened Lapu-Lapu Cebu International College (LCIC) is boosting the resort city’s lure as a premier educational hub in the Philippines, as it noted a surge in the enrollment of international students, further solidifying its position as a global academic center.

Established in 2021 in the middle of a pandemic, LCIC is positioned as a multicultural learning space that equips students with research-based education, currently offering tourism management, physical therapy, and foreign language courses. It also offers an English as a Second Language (ESL) program.

The school, situated on a 6.5-hectare property in Barangay Bankal in Lapu-Lapu City, is now registering close to 500 students, a mix of local and foreign students, enrolling in different four-year degree courses, as well as ESL, providing them with in-school lodging accommodation, initially with 820 beds for co-sharing and 400 single rooms.

In a press conference, LCIC president Grace Gorospe-Jamon, PhD., said the world is already in an era of internationalization, a period marked by increased global interactions, collaborations, and interconnectedness across various aspects of life, including economics, culture, technology, and education.

The school’s thrust is to open its system to international students, which not only boosts Lapu-Lapu City’s appeal to draw in studying tourists but also provides local students the exposure of an inter-cultural environment in a world-class educational system.

Aside from its popular ESL short courses, which are now attracting a bunch of Japanese students and other non-English speaking nationalities, LCIC equips students with research-based education, currently offering tourism management, physical therapy, and foreign language courses.

This coming school-year 2024-2025, the school will expand its course portfolio, including the introduction of its Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering program.

For its foreign language program, the school has nine short-term language courses accredited by the government’s Technical Education Skills and Development Authority and has since produced 14 batches from South Korea and Japan.

To ensure that students get the best education available, LCIC also inked partnerships with over 30 academic partners abroad, such as in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan for knowledge-sharing, among others.

“Jobs are awaiting for our students because those are prepared for them, such as an internship in Japan, for example,” said Jamon.

According to Wilson Calderon, the school’s vice president for admin and finance, they chose these programs for their students to easily land jobs abroad. He noted that graduates from these programs are in high employment demand abroad.

Owned by investors engaged in maritime business, LCIC broke ground in 2019, but its operation was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It started operating in October 2021 with 82 students who were offered full scholarships.

The entire development incurred an estimated investment of P1.5 billion.