In his State of the Nation Address last year, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. said that eight out of 10 graduates of technological-vocational courses find a job right away. Thus, 86 percent of those who have undergone enterprise-based training get employed, a testament to the project’s success.
Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Secretary Jose Francisco Benitez said, “ We have been signing with as many partners as possible who can help us create the training programs specific to Artificial Intelligence transition.” These partners include tech giants like IBM, Google, Microsoft and even Amazon. “We have the entirety of training that our citizens need to upskill.”
A total of 3,421 partnerships were forged by different TESDA operating units in 2024 to ensure that “high-quality, efficient, accessible and relevant technical education and skills development” were provided. Quality is important, since these partnerships are crucial to enhance skills, promote employment, and improve training infrastructure. This is also in consonance with the directive given by President Marcos Jr. to TESDA.
Among the partnerships forged by TESDA in 2024 were those with McDonald’s Philippines, CybersCool DefCon, Inc., the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), the German-Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the China-Philippines Silk Road Foundation, among others.
Last November 7, 2024, President Marcos Jr. signed into law Republic Act No. 12063, or the Enterprise-Based Education and Training Framework Act (EBET). It gives Filipinos the opportunity to develop skills by experiencing via immersion in their desired industry, and in industries with a need for skilled labor.
Thanks to EBET, among those trained are those who need to go through apprenticeship or on-the-job training (OJT) after their senior high school. Those who are already part of the workforce or are “employable” may also train if they want to gain new and more skills, or to take a new career direction.
As pointed out by President Marcos Jr., TESDA’s partnership with the industry is crucial. “TESDA has to constantly upgrade and review its training regulations and programs, and we do this in conjunction with industry,” Secretary Benitez concurred during an interview with the Philippine Information Agency.
“So that we know that our training regulations will improve the industry, they are the ones who validate that the skills being taught are correct. They also tell us [if] any training regulations that exist are lacking and need to be changed,” he added.
While there are many livelihood programs, and there are many training programs in different government agencies. “What we want is to align and see what cooperation and convergence with TESDA is possible, so our efforts are more coordinated. We can help more people with the funds that the administration of President Marcos Jr. has provided to each agency.”
Of the three education agencies (the other two being the Department of Education or DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education, or CHED), TESDA should be the most aligned with the industry,” said Benitez. “We ask industry for cues on what kind of training to do.”
He further noted that the curriculum should actually be “co-created with industry to ensure that those we train can bridge the academe and industry mismatch in terms of what jobs are needed to be filled.”
Apart from being most aligned with industry however, TESDA must first be aligned with other government agencies. Time and again, President Marcos Jr. has asked the leaders of the different government agencies to collaborate with each other.
“Since we are about work and industry, TESDA must [be aligned] with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW). But we need to be aligned [as well] with DepEd and CHED,” Benitez said.
“It was also clear from our conversation with President BBM that our convergence projects and initiatives with other government agencies need to be strong. I have already told DOLE, DTI, DMW. I have also told DepEd, CHED…DWSD [and the] Department of Agriculture” to reduce poverty [and] provide livelihood and employment to our citizens.”
In the interview with Benitez, he said, “Our population, our workforce, a large (number of our) compatriots look for work in the Philippines and in other countries. So, TESDA has to make sure that what we offer is globally-competitive and globally-aligned. The standards must always be international.”
“The first issue there is really the help that has come from President Marcos Jr. The major concern is the budget that he has actually increased every year, the budget of TESDA for scholarships. The scholarship slots we have are obviously not enough for the demand, for the local expansion of the economy [and for those who] go abroad. So President BBM increased our budget so we could work accordingly.”
On 13 November last year, TESDA and DOLE formalized their partnership through a joint memorandum circular (JMC) and a data-sharing agreement to enhance skills training, provide career guidance, and employment support for our workers.
The memo launches a collaborative framework for aligning initiatives that will enable workers to go through career counseling, and take part in soft skills training, technical-vocational education, and job-matching services via PhilJobNet and TESDA’s Registry of Certified Workers.
Such integration is designed to boost workforce readiness, address jobs-skills mismatch, and improve access to employment opportunities..
Continued partnership with stakeholders
TESDA also has plans to collaborate with the business process industry, a top job generator for the country.
“We [hope] to get more and more enterprise-based training with IBPAT – which is the BPO Industry Association that is actually the industry board for business processing with TESDA,” Benitez said.
“We hope to expand the upskilling scholarships that we offer to those who are already in the BPO industry, and who feel that their functions will be replaced by AI.”
He further said, “If they upskill, what they do is they create higher value for themselves, their wages will increase. So TESDA is here to provide as many options as possible, including scholarships and certification, particularly in partnership with IBPAT.”
Benitez said that their collaboration is not only for the review of training regulations, but also for the creation of new programs. To achieve this, TESDA wants to make sure that “It is prepared for a lifelong learning transformation for all people to help them gain better and better employment in step with changing emerging sectors.” Benitez said.
“It’s really to ensure that with the transformation and the transition of the Philippine economy, our workforce has practical skills that they can use for emerging jobs and emerging industrial sectors.”
“Our current desire is to even increase Enterprise-based Education Training, particularly for [this] year. This is in response to the EBET law that PBBM signed weeks ago. The EBET is still the smallest sector we have, but it has the highest employment rates. Institution-based is probably still the biggest right now,” he concluded.
President Marcos Jr. is just following the footsteps of his late father, who opened the doors for youth training and empowerment in the 1970s. But the son also rises in that President BBM has his eyes focused on digital technology and information technology, which forms the brave new world of the 21st century work.
