TESDA scholarship program posts 93% job absorption rate

CEBU, Philippines - Seven times did he apply, seven times did he fail.

When Timothy Piedad, a former radio reporter based in Mindanao, started feeling his salary as a mediaman couldn't suffice his needs, he decided to apply for a call center job here in Cebu.

Piedad, however, couldn't seem to pull off an interview that could send him to the next stage of the application process. "All the companies rejected my application and told me to reapply after a month or two," he recalled.

So when he heard of the Industry-based Training for Work Scholarship Program (ITWSP) of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), he immediately enrolled. And now, he is stuck with five job offers.

Introduced yesterday at the opening of the International Contact Center Conference and Expo, Piedad is only one of the newest batch of TESDA Cebu scholars under the ITWSP program, which aims to give Filipinos access to free training to equip them for the call center job.

"For a period of two weeks, TESDA is giving us basic drills on the English language including proper pronunciation, phrasing, intonation and grammar," said the Masscom graduate who gave up his seven-year journalism career due to low compensation.

In addition, the scholars will also be trained on how to ace any type of interviews in the whole application process, which contributes to the high absorption rate of these graduates into Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies.

This crash course has similarly helped young mother Juliet Diane Paquebot in her bid to enter into the promising BPO sector.

An undergraduate, Paquebot admits she used to lack the basic skills necessary for the performance of the call center agent's job, something she believes was the reason why her previous applications were turned down.

Paquebot shared to The Freeman that she now has an employer, saying she has already started real training for her job.  She believes it would have been hard for her to land on the job without TESDA's help.

"Apart from the trainings, TESDA endorses the graduates to its partner companies," Paquebot said, although clarified they still have to go through the normal application process.

Central Visayas, which is one of the top performing regions in the country in terms of number of TESDA scholar-graduates who actually get employed, registered 93 percent absorption rate based on the 2012 data. This was higher than the national rate of 73 percent.

Out of 5,838 who were enrolled in the course last year, 5,763 eventually graduated in Central Visayas, contributing to the total 43,235 scholars all over the country who managed to finish the free training.

Contact Center Association of the Philippines President Benedict Hernandez said this initiative of the government is a welcome development considering that the vibrant BPO industry is incessantly confronted with the shortage of qualified manpower.

CCAP and TESDA have partnered together in this venture aimed at addressing the lack of talent in the industry while the Philippines is poised as the top outsourcing destination for voice services in the world.

CCAP is presently under talks with the administration as it lobbies for fresh funding for this program. Last year, about P224 million in grant was set aside by the Philippine government specifically for this purpose.

Meanwhile, as for Piedad who traded his passion just to take a bite of the country's "sunshine industry," he would be choosing the employer that "would definitely give me the biggest pay." (FREEMAN)