CLARK FREEPORT – The-owned state Clark Development Corp. (CDC) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) have linked up to make sure that the skills pegs fit the employment holes in this freeport where many job vacancies remain unfilled.
TESDA Director General Joel Villanueva said his agency has allocated P100 million for scholarships in seven provinces within Central Luzon, including Pampanga, to impart skills that would immediately find good-paying and long term employment in this Freeport.
At least 1,016 beneficiaries have so far benefited from this scholarship in seven municipalities in the fourth district of Pampanga alone.
CDC and TESDA have signed a memorandum of agreement to enable them to efficiently share data on trainings in the backdrop of manpower requirements in this Freeport, as well as updated information on available skills of available manpower in this province.
“The agreement highlights the institutionalization of the enterprise-based system as a mode of training prospective workers for companies operating in the region’s business hub.
The enterprise-based training covers the apprenticeship and leardership programs (AP/LP) and the dual training system/dualized training program (DTS/DTP),” the CDC said.
Villanueva said the DTS is “an instructional delivery system of technical and vocational education and training that combines in-plant and in-school training, based on a training plan designed and implemented by accredited dual system agricultural, industrial and business establishments.”
The apprenticeship program, meanwhile, exposes trainees to actual operations and hand-on training in selected companies.
“Under the program, employment of the trainee is assured after he finishes the course and while on training at the company, he receives training allowance computed at 75 percent of the prevailing minimum wage,” Villanueva noted.
He also said that “the enterprise-based training is a program of matching education with jobs. It assures that what one learns in school or the training center is something that he can use in the workplace. We are glad that this partnership with the Clark Development Corporation has been realized.”
Villanueva reported that there are 16 companies or locators within Clark that are in partnership with technical-vocational institutions implementing the DTS program.
Additional 35 companies are in the process of accreditation for the adoption of the said training mode.
He said that by the end of the year, more locators and companies here would be convinced of the importance of the DTS in addressing job mismatch.
Villanueva said that a survey is also in the works within the Clark Freeport to determine the investors’ “manpower needs and other projections for human resource requirements in the next three to five years.”
“About 75 percent or 375 of all active locators have been surveyed so far,” he noted.
He said TESDA trainings are also “geared toward courses identified as key employment generators such as hotel and tourism, cyber services and construction.”
Meanwhile, Villanueva also graced the Central Luzon Regional Skills Competition and handed awards to trainees who have excelled in their respective fields.
The competition was participated in by 113 trainees from Aurora, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Zambales and Bulacan. Representatives from Bulacan emerged as the champion in the competition, followed by Bataan.
“Starting from the provincial level, what we are trying to do actually is to push our trainees and trainers to continue sharpening their skills; to achieve excellence in various trade skills and occupations – to test their confidence and over-all ability; and consequently, to achieve genuine competitiveness,” Villanueva said.
