The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) is urging technical-vocational (tech-voc) schools and institutions in the country to either “shape up” or face the possibility of being closed down.
Tesda director general Joel Villanueva issued the warning yesterday as he revealed the agency’s plan to run after “bogus” and “below standard” tech-voc schools and institutions to ensure that the trainings given to students will always be at par with global benchmark.
“It makes sense that we are the ‘DepEd or Ched’ of tech-voc schools and institutions. We should exercise our power to shut down bogus schools, and even tech-voc schools teaching below standard programs,” Villanueva said.
“We will closely coordinate with the local government units (LGUs) as well as the association of tech-voc institutions (TVIs) to run after these schools. I have already met with many TVIs and they said they will support us in this program,” he added.
Villanueva lamented that there are tech-voc schools and institutions that have training modules that do not measure up the standard, thus, producing graduates that are not competitive enough to secure employment.
And there are also tech-voc schools and institutions that despite having “average” training modules, he said, are charging exorbitant tuition fees.
Villanueva declined, however, to mention the names of the schools and institutions pending the completion of their analysis and assessment.
“Our goal is to produce quality, globally-competitive graduates; to make sure that our tech-voc graduates will be employed whether here or abroad after their trainings that we have to take action against these kinds of tech-voc schools and institutions and close them down,” he stressed. Jason Faustino
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