The School is devoted to the formation of NOVUS ORDUS – a new order of business professionals, enlivened by a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit, possessing skills, knowledge, and attitudes reflecting the best of human values to work toward a just and more equitable society.
The school aspires to become a leader in entrepreneurship research and education in the region.
A PRACTICAL APPROACH
The school aims to develop practicioners that are capable of applying their acquired skills and knowledge in a responsible manner toward solving actual problems.
Although the latest theories and concepts are taken up, students ultimately need to be able to apply them in order to progress throughout the programs.
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENREURSHIP AND EDUCATION (i4See)
I4See was initially established as the school's CSR arm (Corporate Social Responsibility) in 2007.
The Insitute has since then helped various underprivileged communities through livelihood training, product development, community building, and product distribution.
The annual Teenpreneur Challenge is also one of the Institute's main activities which allows the youth to be exposed to entrepreneurship and helping others at a young age.
A Pioneer and Innovator in Business-Entrepreneurship Education
When the school was first founded in 1999, it offered the innovative "twinning" program. The program enables students to do their first two years of college in the Philippines and then automatically transfer to an affiliate university overseas to complete the final year of their undergraduate program.
In 2002, the school became one of the pioneers in entrepreneurship education. The school's undergraduate entrepreneurship program aims to develop and mentor young individuals to successfully start their own business. The school has been graduating entrepreneurs -- each with their own successful start-up venture -- since 2006.
In the same year, the school established progression pathways with universities that allowed students to automatically proceed to a Master's (MA/MSc) program overseas after completing their undergraduate program at E.S.A.
Since 2002, the school has been sending students to oversees affiliates, primarily in the U.K. and Australia to complete their graduate and undergraduate studies.
Philosophy
Business Education Redefined
Ever since the school was founded, it has firmly believed that developing business leaders for today's environment requires more than atraditional business curriculum. Hard business skills and knowledge also need to be completed with appropriate values and attitudes. For organizations to remain competitive, its leaders need to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. In order to continuously pursue opportunities needed to stay ahead of the competition, they will need to embrace intelligent risk-taking. Developing such leaders entailes employing a holistic formation program.
The school's unique combination of academic curricula and student formation program aims to develop entrepreneurial business leaders and fan their entrepreneurial flames within through innovations in both program content and methodology
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Integrated in the Core Curriculum that all students go through is the Entrepreneurrial Formation Program. Its aim is to develop the students by increasing their self-knowledge, strenghtening their self-leadership, improving their emotional quotient (EQ), stretching their adversity quotient, and reducing their risk-aversion. Throughout the curricula and programs, a progressive Experiential Action Learning approach is used.
Methodology
Experiential Action Learning
The Experiential Action Learning system is a fusion of various learning processes which emphasize the students' roles and actual experiences in the learning process.
Throughout the curricula and programs, students are required to apply in varying degrees the concepts being taken up in class. Emphasis is also placed on the development of creative problem-solving and intelligent decision-making abilities.
Students are made to take on a major role in determining the type of projects to implement. Such projects progressively become more complex and gradually require greater integration of knowledge and skills as the students advance through their program curriculum. At each stage, students are made to reflect on their experience, which becomes the basis of pushing themselves to move up further. For guidance and motivation, students are provided with mentors during the course of their studies.
A Great Community
Collaborative Partnerships
E.S.A. is a small tightly-knit community. Everybody knows everybody else. With similar aspirations and challenges, students support each other by providing inspiration, ideas, solutions, contacts, suppliers, customers, and even capital at times.
An essential feature of the E.S.A. community is the good rapport students have with the core faculty, mentors, and administrators who can be approached freely and who take time to know every student and at times, even their parents. The whole community collaborates typically even after students graduate. Numerous alumni have gone on to establish additional businesses ventures together.
Entrepreneurs for Society
Triple Bottom Line
E.S.A. aims to develop business people who will make a positive impact on society. An integral objective of the Entrepreneurial Formstion Program that all students go through is to instill in the to pursue the triple bottom line: people, planet, profits. In line with it's mission, the school aims to develop professionals who can make a positive contribution to society.
An essential part of the school's core curriculum are the Social Entrepreneurship Experience and Business Ethics courses. These courses require students to take part in identifying, planning, and implementing socially relevant and responsive projects. The aim of such projects is to help effect positive change by improving the lives of various underprivileged communities or the broader natural environment.
A significant number of such projects, such as the very successful annual "Teenpreneur Challenge", are carried out together with the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship Education (I4SEE) and other partner institutions.