03 June 2011
With nearly eight out of 10 graduates getting employment after finishing their courses, technical and vocational education in the province of Bataan is facing brighter prospects.
Training Institutions run by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and its partners continue to enjoy a surge in enrollees, fueled by more students seeking skills-based education that have high demand for jobs in the country or abroad.
For the first few months of 2011, enrollment in Bataan for the “REAL DEAL technical education skills development (TESD)” platform almost doubled from 3,753 to 7,175. Its graduates increased from 3,565 to 6,818. Of these, a total of 6,578 underwent assessment and 5,591 were certified, or an 85% passing rate.
This year, TESDA also started institutionalizing its job facilitation program among technical vocational institutes to help its graduates find employment after finishing their courses.
“Under this governance policy, TESDA will exercise the highest level of stewardship in middle-level skills development in the country, ensuring that those who live in the grassroots are given optimal value for the public funds expended to it by the government and even its well-meaning partners from the public and private sectors,” TESDA Director General Joel Villanueva said.
“This is a tremendous growth in the number of students enrolling in technical vocational courses. We are happy that people are seeing TESDA’s program as essential to preparing students for a 21st century workforce,” he said.
TESDA’s programs in the province for 2010 boast of impressive record.
It has a 77.6 percent employment rate from its graduates in various fields. From January to December 2010, Bataan has a total of 7,176 graduates out of the 9,482 who enrolled for training in TESDA’s various programs.
For its Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP), 716 slots were made available with a budget of P5 million.
For the Private Education Student Fund Assistance (PESFA) program, TESDA had 77 scholars. The amount of scholarship was P535,000.
Villanueva said Bataan, which is situated in Central Luzon, should serve as a model to other provinces of how the collaboration among TESDA, local government unit and private institutions can help push technical vocational education among the people.
“The cooperation is very impressive. Each pours in resources to provide low-cost but quality education to our students,” he said when he recently spoke before a gathering of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines-Bataan chapter.
Villanueva thanked the local government of Bataan and private institutions for working with TESDA.
TESDA has a provincial training center in Orion, a regional training center in Mariveles and a provincial office in Balanga. It has also partnered with several private corporations in providing the tech-voc training to its scholars and other students.
Recently, the Bataan Peninsula State University became a recipient of P22-million worth of automotive facilities improvement and equipment under TESDA's Expansion of Dual Education and Training (EDET) project.
For 2011, a total of 211 slots for the privately-funded PESFA program will be made available, costing close to half a million pesos. The scholars will be trained in food and beverage services, computer hardware servicing and shielded metal arc welding.
TESDA will also continue its community-based training for applicants interested in sewing, massage therapy, heavy equipment operation, shielded metal arc welding, pipe-fitting, English proficiency and automotive.
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