MANILA, Philippines - Graduates of technical and vocational courses can get employed without any effort, the government said yesterday.
Joel Villanueva, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) director general, said tech-voc graduates, particularly those the agency has certified, have better chances of getting hired.
Many industries are already on the lookout and offering employment to graduates with special technical vocational skills, he added.
Villanueva said four industries expected to provide the most number of employment this year are the creative industries, strategic farming and fishing, power and utilities, and renewable energy.
TESDA fully supports the growth of animation in the country’s booming IT industry, he added.
Villanueva said TESDA graduates were molded and trained for various courses and specializations.
They are now ready to give quality and world-class service in all parts of the globe, he added.
TESDA offers ladderized courses like B.S. Hospitality Management embedding the following qualifications: Commercial Cooking NC II, Bartending NC II, FBS NC II, and Housekeeping NC II; and the B.S. Information Technology that embeds Programming NC IV.
Other courses offered are Computer Hardware Servicing NC II, HealthCare Services NC II, and Seafaring-Catering/ Stewarding NC II.
The ladderized education allows learners to progress between technical vocational education and training (TVET) and college, and vice-versa.
Villanueva said this year the government allotted more than P3 billion for technical education and may need to allocate P5 billion to meet the demand for more skilled workers by 2016.
For 2012, the five sectors with the most number of TESDA enrollees are tourism, information and communications technology, health services, construction industry and automotive, he added.
Data at the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) indicated that the four disciplines with the most number of enrollees and graduates nationwide are business administration and related discipline, medical and allied sciences, IT-related disciplines, and education and teacher-related training.
Villanueva said 50 percent of all enrollees in the tertiary level belong to the so-called low priority disciplines.
“What is more regrettable is the dismal performance of graduates who take the Professional Regulation Commission examinations in education, nursing, midwifery and electrical engineering,” he said.
Villanueva urged graduating high school students to consider taking up tech-voc courses.
“What matters is for one to become a specialist in his chosen course, find a job later on and deliver quality service,” he said.
More jobs in Middle East
More jobs await Filipino workers in the Middle East, the government said yesterday.
Administrator Hans Cacdac of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) said the democratization movement in Arab countries has boosted the hiring of migrant workers, including highly skilled overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“The movement has prompted governments in the Middle East to focus on providing the basic needs of their people, like putting up more hospitals which boost the employment prospects for our workers,” he said.
Cacdac said a higher deployment of Filipino workers was posted despite the hostilities in the Middle East.
“Middle East still accounts for almost 80 percent of our overseas deployment and more workers are still needed there, particularly in the energy, tourism, construction and medical sector,” he said.
Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said the recent lifting of the deployment ban in Libya, Sudan and Nigeria is also expected to boost the overseas employment prospects for Filipino workers this year.
“We have no projection yet, but the lifting of the ban, particularly in Libya, could open more market for our OFWs,” she said.
Meanwhile, migrant workers and recruitment agencies are protesting the government’s failure to stop the “decking practices” of a group of medical clinics exclusively giving medical examination for workers bound for the Middle East.
The Federated Associations of Manpower Exporters said the decking system has caused much suffering for prospective OFWs for many years.
The group said the Department of Health already issued an administrative order stopping the practice, but a number of accredited medical clinics continue to implement the policy.
“For years, the overseas workers have endured the hardships brought about by decking, like being farmed out to medical clinics very far from their residences, especially those who hail from the provinces where there are other medical clinics duly accredited to conduct health examinations; being required to undergo 2nd x-ray examination even if the finding in the 1st x-ray examination is okay; being referred to another GAMCA medical clinic for simple ailment as skin rash; and being provided with sub-standard medical facilities and poor services,” recruitment officials said.