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BY HERBERT VEGO
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Looking at Treñas and Mabilog as TESDA partners
THE CONGRESSMAN and the mayor of Iloilo City – Jerry Treñas and Jed Patrick Mabilog, respectively – have joined hands with Toni June Tamayo, the regional director of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), in the common goal of deploying the less fortunate into the technical-vocational workforce.
Rep. Treñas, whose “Uswag” college scholarship has turned hundreds of young constituents into professionals, has as well turned his attention to those inclined to take up and finish technical-vocational courses instead in the shortest possible time. However, with the onset of the K-12 program of the Department of Education extending by two more years high school education – there are no high school graduates this year who could take up regular tech-voc courses, unless by special arrangement with TESDA.
To hurdle the K-12 impediment in, the congressman has initiated scholarships under TESDA’s Special Training for Employment Program (STEP). These scholars are now studying a short course in Shielded Metal Arc Welding. As one of TESDA’s pro-poor contingency measures, STEP seeks to address specific needs of communities and promote employment or self-employment.
The Treñas initiative complements that of Mayor Mabilog’s partnership with TESDA through the
Barangay Kasanayan Para sa Kabuhayan at Kapayapaan (BKPKK) program, which was launched in Iloilo City last October 19 with no less than Director General Guiling A. Mamondiong spearheading the ceremony.
Thousands of Ilonggos have already enlisted to take part in the program. Regardless of their level of educational attainment, the initial local trainees are immersing themselves in such courses as Agri-Fishery, Welding, Cookery, Dressmaking, Automotive and Information Technology, among others.
The BKPKK is targeted to cover all 42,000 barangays all over the country, counting on barangay officials to initiate “barangay mapping.” This means that they would personally integrate with prospective beneficiaries and determine how they could fit into the technical-vocational trainings available. They would scout for livelihood competencies ideal for jobless or underemployed residents of each barangay regardless of age, as long as they are fit to work.
Meanwhile, no less than the chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Patricia Licuanan, has come up with a definitive statement encouraging tertiary enrollees to opt for vocational courses. At the Education Summit at the Mall of Asia last November 3, she told about 500 stakeholders that while one of the main priorities of the Filipino families is for their children to take up college courses, “Maybe it is better for them to go to TESDA to take vocational courses.”
As CHED head, Licuanan pulled a surprise in airing that view, since it contradicts the official argument of the Department of Education (DepEd) that we have been left behind by other countries that impose six years of high school as preparation for the secondary students’ tertiary education.
Dep-Ed’s position, as this writer was saying in a previous article hitting the imposition of K-12, does not jibe with the reality that Filipino workers – notably engineers, nurses, accountants and technical-vocational workers – are in demand in the global market despite their high school “lack”.
On the other hand, certain skilled workers don’t have to go abroad to earn bigger than white-collar professionals. There on Semirara Island, Antique, for instance, heavy equipment operators get a starting salary of P70,000.
Indeed – as Rep. Treñas and Mayor Mabilog must have learned, too – the job market does not look for graduates who have spent more years in school but for everybody who has earned skills, whether taught or self-studied./PN
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