10 July 2014
A total of P1.1 billion was released to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) in October 2011 from funds coming from the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
The fund was used to augment TESDA's Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP), which has provided free technical vocational education and training to thousands of students.
Out of the P 1.1 billion, P500 million went to the BPO-IT (Business Process Outsourcing-Information Technology) sector, through the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), and P600 million to support the skills requirement in four priority sectors – agriculture/agri-business; tourism, retirement, health and wellness; general infrastructure; and electronics/semi-conductor.
The scholarship projects implemented with the BPAP yielded a total of 65,048 graduates, and an employment rate of 70.7 percent (45,961).
The projects with the other priority sectors produced a total of 73,632 graduates, and an employment rate of 60 percent (44,179).
Of the P1.1 billion, around P38 million or 3 percent were unutilized and went to the National Treasury. Among the reasons for the failure to use the fund was the delay in the processes of some private sector partners, the dropout rate, and the inability to fully implement scholarship programs in some areas because of calamities.
As to reports about the 61 alleged ghost scholars out of the 210,000 scholars of TESDA, we found out that some are already working abroad, while others could not be traced because they have changed contact numbers. We made this clear to COA and it accepted our explanation.
Adhering to the COA recommendation, TESDA ordered several schools that failed to implement the scholarship program to return the money alloted to them. TESDA also ordered the closure of some schools that were found to have irregularities in their tech-voc programs.
Amid its findings, COA did not issue any notice of disallowance or notice of suspension for this spending.
We are prepared to present documents when necessary to show that this fund has reaped gains for the beneficiaries.
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