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[av_heading heading=’Professionalizing ‘tech-voc’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Thursday, March 16, 2017
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ARRIVING from a two-week stay in Sydney, Australia, Regional Director Toni June Tamayo of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) talked to this writer about the importance that the Australian government attributes to technical-vocational education.
“Tech-voc graduates there command respectability,” he said, “because of the expertise they possess after studying in a TAFE institution.”
TAFE stands for Technical and Further Education. It’s an Australian government-run system that provides college-level education after high school in vocational areas. It focuses on specific skills – say, welding or carpentry — for a particular workplace. Entry into this system usually requires students to have finished at least grade 10.
Incidentally, auto mechanics in Australia now earn the equivalent of P225,000 a month.
Tamayo added that the high demand for tech-voc skills locally may yet lead to conversion of TESDA into a department. A bill now being hatched by Rep. Raul “Boboy” Tupas calls for the creation of the Department of Technical-Vocational Education. Hat’s off to Boboy for that. When departmentalized, TESDA’s present budget of P6.9 billion could probably double or triple.
This writer, in fact, has been saying that instead of the K-12 program or “compulsory kindergarten to grade 12,” the government should have defrayed more funds for TESDA to solve the problem on dearth of technical vocational workers. The job market does not look for college graduates who have spent more years in high school; it looks for skilled workers regardless of the number of years they have spent in school.
Therefore, the claim of the previous administration’s Education’s Secretary Armin Luistro that “we have been left behind” by other countries which require six years of high school as against our four is misleading. On the contrary, we have “brain drain” here because our professionals and skilled workers go abroad.
More years in school means more expenses, hence aggravating the dearth of college graduates. To reiterate the latest statistics, out of every 100 students who enroll in the elementary school, only 33 enroll in college. And of these 33, only 14 finally graduate.
To mitigate this problem, some private high schools have partnered with TESDA as venues for short-term technical vocational courses (two years or even less) that would attract poor students desirous of entering the job market.
The Lyceum of Alabang in Muntinglupa City, for example, offers two-year courses in Information Technology, Electronics, Bookkeeping and Tourism, among others. There are even three-month crash courses in Bartending, Cookery, Housekeeping, Food/Beverage Services, Baking and Computer Hardware Servicing.
The popularity of short courses truly mirrors the longing of poor parents to enable their children to live a more comfortable life sooner than later; and of children themselves to relieve their parents of financial burden.
It’s about time for TESDA to “graduate” into a department, having gone a long way since its inception as the National Manpower and Youth Council (NMYC) under the Department of Labor and Employment in 1970.
In 1994, the NMYC turned into TESDA with the signing of Republic Act RA 7796 by President Fidel Ramos. Thus began a new educational division aimed at harnessing the technical-vocational skills of the Filipino youth.
TESDA aims to eradicate the labor-supply mismatch that involves students who complete college but don’t find jobs appropriate for their educational attainment because they do not have the required skills.
In 23 years, TESDA has reduced that mismatch. It has identified the employment-generating tech-voc courses as those related to construction, tourism, electronics, logistics and agriculture. As of latest survey under the leadership of Director General Guiling Mamondiong, 68 percent of TESDA national certificate holders get employed whether here or abroad./PN
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