TESDA eyes 5.3 million graduates employed by 2016

26 February 2012

The Technical Educationand Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has ratcheted up its goals of beingthe country's prime provider of quality technical-vocational education, vowingto produce 5.3 million certified graduates by the end of the Aquinoadministration in 2016.

Gathering top-level officials in a GeneralDirectorate Conference, TESDA Director General Joel Villanueva gave themarching orders to beef up enrolment and employment of graduates, thresh outoperational issues and improve the quality of courses to meet their targets.

"By the end of President Aquino's term in2016, we would like to be remembered as having contributed 5.3 millionTESDA-certified workers or TESDA Specialistas  as we proudly call them, whowill find work or manage their own small businesses and earn incomes that theyplough back to the country through expenditures and savings," Villanuevasaid in a speech.

"The direction we are taking is to reachthe grassroots and empower the reached with quality technical education andskills development interventions that lead to employment of our trainingbeneficiaries, providing them incomes to improve the quality of their lives andthe living conditions of the communities,"he said.

The TESDA chief flagged the attention of theagency's officials to meet the numbers of persons enrolled, graduates, assessedand certified and eventually monitored as employed and with incomes.

He instructed them to make available relevantdetails on the courses or qualifications, and assess which are among the keyemployment generators in a particular area.

TESDA should also explore further convergenceinitiatives with other government agencies and encourage them to aggressivelypursue public private partnerships in implementing technical education andskills development activities which could help alleviate poverty, including theadoption of municipalities identified by the National Anti-Poverty Commission(NAPC) as focus areas.

Villanueva cited the agency's gains in the pastyear that he said helped it reach new frontiers, including, the successful PNoyBayanihan School Furniture Production Project that converted confiscated logsinto school furniture.

The project was inpartnership with the Department of Education, Department of Environment andNatural Resources and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation.

TESDA also actively participated in the K to 12Summit, which helped it define its role under the expanded Basic EducationCurriculum.  It also came to the aid of areas stricken by calamity,particularly through its project that gathered water lilies and transformedthem into materials for bags.

Recently, it launched its first classroom onwheels through the Mobile Training Plus Park and Train bus, which featured a100-seater vehicle equipped with computers for mobile training.

Villanueva also enjoined the filed units tostrengthen its linkages with the media in advancing the agency's programs. Hedirected all its regional units to regularly come up with updates to inform thepublic about TESDA’s accomplishments.