Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Director General Jose Francisco "Kiko" Benitez said his agency is currently reviewing its training regulations to see if it's still up to date and to ensure that the country's job-skills mismatch are being addressed.
"Updating is an ongoing, constant process for us. So the question is that, what are the mechanisms that TESDA has to ensure that the job-skills mismatches are bridged," Secretary Benitez said.
"I'll probably start with what we call our new micro-credentialing system. Sometimes, for example, the competency in one NC [National Certificate] is 15, right? Those three are not needed. Then there are four new ones that are needed. So what we do is, we make the four new ones micro-credentialed," he explained.
Skills mismatch, according to him, sometimes, is only incremental, emphasizing the importance of enterprise-based education to be aligned with the needs of the industry.
"The second mechanism is really to do enterprise-based education with partners. So we ask for help from our industry boards, from our partners in the private sector, to tell us because they are the ones who are validating all of our training regulations," Benitez said.
"It all goes through the industry board so that the industry can validate that this is still what they need. So if you do enterprise-based education, the enterprise is included—the industry itself that designs the training plan so that we can be sure that what will come out of that training plan is the type of worker that will be accepted and given a job by that enterprise," the TESDA chief added.
Benitez said those are the two things that they've rolled out last year.
"We're hoping that at least on that note, we can bridge the job-skills mismatch in terms of curriculum design. The other one that really is part of the job-skills mismatch is information asymmetry," he said.
"In other words, if you're graduating from a course and you don't have a job in your area, that's why you won't be able to find a job. So through things like the skills passport, which is connected to the peso data of DOLE [Deparment of Labor and Employment], we can tell you if this is your course, where there is a job that is suitable for you. You can decide," the TESDA chief added.