15 August 2013
Secretary Joel Villanueva vowed to transform the 2014 budget of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) into investment for skills development that will usher in more jobs for the Filipinos.
Villanueva, TESDA director general, together with Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz and officials of agencies under the Department of Labor faced the members of the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives Wednesday to present their proposed budget for next year.
For 2014, TESDA is seeking P4.09 billion budget to fund its scholarship programs and nationwide operations.
"We will strictly adhere to the 2014 Budget Priorities Framework of the Department of Budget and Management and the NEDA Action Plan for Employment Creation to ensure that the results of our 2014 skills development programs, activities and projects will be counted in the achievement of the Employment and Poverty Reduction outcomes desired by the Aquino Administration," Villanueva said.
Toward this goal, he said the budget will be judiciously utilized to deliver TESDA's three-fold objectives of:
1. Increasing citizen access to 1.2 million techvoc qualifications through competency-based training and competency assessment;
2. Improving the skills of 918,928 Filipino certified workers to usher into employment no less than 60 percent of them within a 6-month job search period; and
3. Strengthening the capacities of marginalized population segments in at least 407 city/municipalities in 71 provinces across all 17 regions of the country.
"The P4 billion investments in TESDA could be recovered from the 610,000 TESDA-certified skilled workers only in seven months. The return on investment will come from incomes they derive through wage or self-employment conservatively estimated at P10,000 per month over a six-month search period," Villanueva said.
Villanueva said TESDA provincial and regional directors will coordinate closely with the Local Poverty Reduction Teams and Regional Poverty Reduction Teams to ensure that its education and training interventions are focused towards increasing raising employability, creating jobs and mainstreaming of the underserved segment of the population into the economy.
"Thus, even as TESDA will continue to attract new learners to our quality-assured techvoc programs, it will also endeavor to design skills upgrading for workers employed in the manufacturing sector," he said.
Continuous collaboration with local government units, civil society groups as well with the business community will be undertaken to gather their inputs for the enhancement of TESDA's training standards and delivery of quality training fit to the needs of the economy.
"In pursuing its 2014 operations, TESDA will build on the good practices that proved true in leading techvoc program graduates to productivity, job placements and incomes that positively changed their and their families," Villanueva said.
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