February 28, 2019
At the TESDA-NCR TVET forum held at Blue Leaf Filipinas in Parañaque City on February 22, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Director General, Secretary Isidro S. Lapeña, rolled out the agency’s 2019 Omnibus Guidelines for Scholarships, setting a new employment rate for tech-voc graduates.
Lapeña emphasized TESDA's crucial role in tech-voc education which should include initiatives from students' enrolment to employment. In the new guidelines, a higher employment rate of 60 percent is among the criteria for selecting technical vocational institutions (TVIs) that will be granted scholarship slots.
This means that 60 percent of scholar graduates of a certain TVI must be employed within a year of finishing their training for the TVI to qualify to receive scholarship slots. This was previously set at 50 percent.
Speaking before delegates of TESDA Technology Institutions (TTIs), TVET Vocational Institutions (TVIs), technical vocational education and training stakeholders, and TESDA officials, the TESDA Director General said he had instructed for the immediate launch of the guidelines to properly guide TVIs, as well as tech-voc students, on the new TVET directions.
“This is to ensure fast and effective implementation of the scholarship programs by all of the country’s TVIs,” he explained.
Lapeña, who was introduced by TESDA-NCR Regional Director Conrado G. Bares, also emphasized in his keynote message that under his leadership, the TESDA is working for more inclusivity as embodied in the new TESDA tagline, “TESDA, Abot Lahat!”
“At TESDA, we will target, seek, and serve ‘the helpless, the hopeless, and the defenseless’ as President Rodrigo R. Duterte had so aptly instructed,” he said.
“Since joining TESDA, I have emphasized that our clients must include those who have very little in life, mainly because they are the ones in need of most assistance,” he added.
For 2019, Lapeña said TESDA’s scholarship beneficiaries would include more indigenous peoples (IPs), former rebels, persons with disabilities (PWDs), and senior citizens, in addition to migrant workers, the urban poor, drug dependents who have surrendered to authorities, and other members of similar sectors.
Lapeña said the new omnibus scholarships guidelines are focused on quality training, and to achieve this, he said the TESDA will grant incentives to outstanding TVIs.
“Quality training is of utmost importance to us. This is why we will grant additional scholarship slots, as incentives, to institutions that have earned awards, recognitions, or certifications,” he announced.
The grant of additional scholarship slots will also be based on TVIs’ compliance with TESDA regulations. This means the TVIs should have no violations and are not facing any complaints.
“They also must have utilized their budgets fully, prudently, and well,” he said, explaining that for 2019, for TVIs to be qualified to be given scholarship slots, they must have had a minimum of 80 percent utilization rate of their 2018 scholarship budget.
The TESDA-NCR TVET Forum is an annual platform for TESDA to engage its partners and stakeholders and to outline to TVIs its policy directions for the year. TESDA officials, including district directors, heads of TESDA technology institutions (TTIs) and TVET Vocational Institutions, and other stakeholders attended this tear’s Forum.
DR. Danilo V. Ayap, President of the NCR Alliance of TVET Schools and Associations (NATSA), and his Vice President Engr. Levy Traquena are some of the officials who attended TESDA NCR’s 2019 TVET Forum.
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