Agency's scholars find jobs in Middle East after completing course

Sunday, April 24, 2011

ONE hundred scholars of an agency tasked to upgrade Filipino workers' skills are now bound for various jobs in the Middle East while another 100 workers are expecting to be employed locally after completing their respective technical-vocational courses.

This was announced by the Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (Tesda), citing the success of its Training for Work Scholar Program (TWSP).

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The 200 scholars are beneficiaries of the project granted to Chi-E's Promotion Training Center Inc., which facilitated the training, through Tesda's Pasay-Makati district office, Tesda Director General Joel Villanueva said.

The scholars were trained in various fields from November 8, 2010 to February 15 this year, he added.

Villanueva said the immediate employment of the scholars here and abroad is proof of the agency’s effective tech-voc training and its linkages with the private sectors.

"As a nation of young workforce, increasing the number of our scholars and broadening opportunities for tech-voc education is the way to go,” the TESDA chief said.

Majority of the graduates will work as household service workers in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Quatar and Dubai while a few will work as drivers, waitresses and in the maintenance service.

Villanueva said Tesda will continue to reinforce the push to expand a skilled workforce through the TWSP, despite the limited budget given to the agency.

"The skills training of our scholars will always be on a high even with the constraints in resources," he said, adding that the agency is also focusing its efforts on returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) from the Middle East, particularly from Libya, which was wracked by a violent political crisis since February as well as those coming from earthquake-ravaged Japan.

Earlier, the agency said 38 returning OFW have recently completed their training on hair cutting, manicure, and other beauty-related courses with six of those who completed the training immediately hired by salons in Metro Manila.

The current round of training was part of the TESDA’s assessment and certification program that offered qualifications in various fields such as programming, computer hardware servicing, housekeeping, health care service, bread and pastry production, driving, and animation.

It is one of the measures being implemented by TESDA to address the low absorption rate of tech-voc graduates in the country to the local and foreign work sector despite the infusion of resources in the past administration.

Figures released by the agency showed that from 2008 to 2009, only 113,710 TESDA scholars out of the more than 740,000 nationwide got employed after graduation.

Villanueva said the agency is aiming to more than double the absorption rate from the current 28 percent to 55 percent this year through the establishment of more modern training centers, upgrading the skills and quality of the faculty and intensifying the crackdown against sub-standard tech-voc institutions. (AH/Sunnex)