Marking its first 100 days under the new administration, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has underscored its commitment to prioritize technical vocational education and training for the benefit of the agriculture sector.
“TESDA regards the agriculture sector as among the most important in the country. We must ensure that a steady supply of well-trained workers, equipped with the most up-to-date knowledge is available,” according to TESDA Director General Danilo P. Cruz.
“We are putting the country’s tech-voc infrastructure and TESDA’s resources behind this administration’s programs and directions to ensure that its long-term goals are realized,” added DG Cruz.
Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash
TESDA Deputy Director General Aniceto Bertiz III, in a recent TV interview, said the Agency has given 30 percent of its total scholarship budget to the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector as part of its responsive and high-quality technical vocational education and training (TVET).
“In line with the administration’s goal towards food security, we have prioritized the technical vocational training of our Filipino farmers, especially among young people in the urban and rural areas,” he said.
From January to October 12 of this year, the total number of individuals who enrolled in agriculture-related tech-voc courses reached 137,206, of whom some 135,571 have already graduated.
These courses include Agricultural Crops Production, Organic Agriculture Production, Rice Machinery Operations, Agricultural Machinery Servicing, Grains Production, Landscape Installation and Maintenance, Aquaculture, Fish Capture, and Horticulture, among many others.
For the first three quarters of 2022, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Sector accounts for almost 18 percent of the total number of tech-voc graduates.
A total of 769,529 tech-voc graduates were reported for the first three quarters of 2022, a number which is larger by more than 111,000 graduates than what was recorded during the same period in 2021.
These trained individuals, Bertiz explained, are the products of the different public and private tech-voc institutions nationwide, including the graduates of various community-based and enterprise-based programs.
“We continue to improve and expand our services, particularly in the agriculture sector to help the country achieve food self-sufficiency. We are also developing more training courses for the post-harvest training programs for them to market their products,” he said.
“TESDA has intensified its efforts to ensure that there are available qualified human resources for the different industries through the agency’s quality-assured TVET delivery, assessment, and certification systems,” Bertiz added.
He also said the Agency will collaborate more with the industries in sectors such as Agriculture, Tourism, Manufacturing, Transportation & Logistics, Health, IT-BPM, Creative Industries, Energy, and Construction.
“TESDA will continue the implementation of the area-based demand-driven TVET to ensure sector-focused and area-based responsive TVET policies and program delivery,” he said.
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