The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Provincial Office hosted a consultation forum with its industry partners last August 9, 2016 at Reyna’s Haven and Garden in Tagbilaran City.
TESDA-Bohol, headed by Provincial Director Francisca R. Opog, PhD, gathered representatives from its partners in the hotel, health and wellness, metal works, construction, dressmaking, pastry and food industries for a one-day forum to talk about how to improve the quality of graduates of the TESDA training centers and the TESDA-registered private training institutes in the various training courses offered by the agency.
In her opening remarks Director Opog expressed her great appreciation for the presence of industry partners to the forum. She added that the opinions of partners, who are the end users of the graduates of the training courses, are essential inputs to realize the agency’s goal of improving the curriculum of the trainings offered.
Attending the forum were 15 proprietors or representatives from companies such as South Palms Resort, Bellevue Resort, JJ’s Seafood Village, Masaje de Bohol, Hermes Metal Designs, Du Ek Sam Inc., Powerline, and Bread’s EDGE Corporation, to name a few. In the ensuing discussions and workshops three important points were unanimously decided as things needed to be implemented by TESDA in order to improve the quality of tech-voc graduates produced. The first was the need to increase the total number of training days from the 30-90 days at present to six months. This is to ensure that trainees will have ample time to learn all the facets of the job.
The second recommendation was to give more attention to values formation and developing the right attitude. Some industry partners opined that the younger generation seems to lack the basic values that would constitute a good employee. Things like courtesy, self-confidence, resilience, and diligence are values that employers think need to be hammered into the minds of the youth in general and to the tech-voc trainees in particular. The last suggestion that came about during the consultation was on the need for trainers, both from TESDA training centers and private training institutions, to be immersed in the industry. This way, the instructors will have a working knowledge and experience of the skills that they will teach the trainees. In support of this idea, some industry partners expressed their willingness to accommodate the trainers in their respective companies.
The one-day workshop ended with a promise from the TESDA provincial director to bring all the recommendations from the participants to the regional and national level so that policies can be made to accommodate the suggestions to improve the training courses offered by TESDA. CMA (HNU-CELP)