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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider House panels OK creation of 'Department of Technical Education and Skills Development'

House panels OK creation of 'Department of Technical Education and Skills Development'

Published Feb 9, 2021 06:51 pm

Two House committees approved in principle on Tuesday, February 9, the proposal to turn the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) into a separate government department.

MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO

Members of the House of Representatives' committees on government reorganization and higher and technical education agreed to approve the consolidated bill seeking the creation of a Department of Technical Education and Skills Development.

Nine bills containing the proposal were filed in the Lower Chamber.

The measure, if passed into law, would repeal the Republic Act No. 7796, the law which created the TESDA in 1994.

Baguio City Rep. Mark Go, who chairs the higher education committee and whose bill would be the working draft for the measure, said "elevating" the TESDA into a department will equip the agency with sufficient resources and updated powers "to respond to the significant changes in both local and global labor market".

"It is important that we also give due importance and attention to technical education and skills development as much as we  have attend to the needs of basic and higher education," Go said during the hearing.

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, for his part, emphasized the economic advantages of converting the TESDA into a department, saying the knowledge and skills are "most important determinant" of the country's economic growth.

"The better our country's ability to absorb skills -- that means workers, that means through technical education -- the stronger its economy will be," said Salceda, who also filed a similar bill.

TESDA Director General Isidro Lapeña supported the measure. Among others, he said making the TESDA a department will ensure the continuity of their programs and will also improve its budget allocation.

He said the TESDA only gets 2.23 percent of the government's annual budget for education, most of the funds were allotted for training and "only a few" for the upgrading of their facilities and equipment.

Due to the lack of resources, he said the TESDA was only able to serve 13 percent of its potential Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) clientele of 50.4 million, which includes the unemployed, the employed and underemployed, and those not in the labor force.

Lapeña said some 9.43 million enrollees have graduated from its TVET courses since 2016

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