By Roche Angon, National Project Coordinator for ILO
MDG Fund Joint Programme on Alternatives to Migration: Decent Work for Filipino Youth

The Technical Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) confirmed the 2^nd batch of 250 disadvantaged youth as graduates of labour market-responsive technical vocational skills training in Masbate on May 4. To date, a total of 500 disadvantaged youth completed the 13 training courses offered by TESDA its accredited 11 technical vocational institutions in the province.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) in partnership with TESDA and Provincial Local Government of Masbate implemented the labour market-responsive technical vocational skills training in Masbate. This was made possible through the support of Spanish funded Millennium Development Goal Fund (MDG F) Joint Programme on Alternatives to Migration: Decent Work for Filipino Youth. ILO also commissioned a study “Assessment of Technical Vocational Skills and Education of Disadvantaged Youth in Masbate, Antique, Maguindanao and Agusan del Sur” which served as basis to design a labour market-responsive technical vocational skills training program.

Training graduates completed their on-the-job training with private sector partners who forged partnership with TESDA and technical vocational institutions to provide on-the-job training to the youth. Under the Joint Programme, the mandatory on-the-job training is one of the value-added features of technical vocational skills training over the regular training programs of TESDA.

Other value-added features are mandatory profiling of training graduates, mandatory three-day gender sensitivity training, partnership agreements entered into by public and private sector partners to accommodate on-the-job training of youth, provision of training support fund while undergoing training, and subsistence allowance for the on-the-job training.

“The value-added features make the technical vocational skills training under the Joint Programme different from TESDA’s regular training programs of TESDA which help increase the employability of training graduates” according to Ms Mildred Marcaida, Provincial Director of TESDA in Masbate. TESDA plans to incorporate these features, particularly mandatory on-the-job training, and mandatory profiling and institutionalize partnership agreements into its regular training programs.

To increase their access to employment opportunities, TESDA provides post training services to training graduates in collaboration with public and private partners. These include competency assessment for the issuance of National Certification (NC) to help them land employment, provision of start-up kits to NC holders who will venture into community-based enterprises, pre-employment seminar for those who will opt for wage employment, and job bridging to link with potential employers.

Masbate is the first province to achieve the target number of youth trained in technical vocational skills among the four pilot provinces of the Joint Programme. It registers the highest employment rate of graduates at 30 per cent from the 1^st batch of trainees who completed the training in February as of to date. All of them gained employment in the province.

Excel Conde, a 20-year old, training graduate of Computer Hardware Servicing with 2^nd level National Certification, immediately got a job in a private enterprise in Masbate. It is the same enterprise that extended the on-the-job training. Along with other training graduates, she received post training services from the Provincial Office of TESDA in Masbate.

TESDA aims to attain a minimum employment rate of youth graduates at 55 per cent within the 6-month job search period.