TESDA to implement skills training program for poorest municipalities

MANILA, Philippines - Even poor out of school youth can fulfill their dreams of getting a good job or putting up their own business.

The Technical Education and Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) yesterday announced a plan to implement a program providing skills training for 7,000 poor out of school youths (OSYs).

TESDA chief Joel Villanueva said the program is meant to provide better employment and other sources of livelihood for OSYs.

Villanueva said the beneficiaries of the program would be selected from 300 to 400 poorest municipalities in the country that were identified by the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster composed of heads of various government departments and agencies.

“This is giving second chance to the young people who are not in education. We want to offer them an alternative education so they would have the skills they need to get ready for work,” Villanueva explained.

The program involves the convergence of TESDA’s Training for Work Scholarship Program (TWSP) and DOLE’s Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) to give boost to technical vocational training by making it within reach of young students who could not continue their studies because of poverty.

The TWSP-SPES program is open to applicants between 15 and 25 years of age, who have reached at least high school level and have received an average passing grade during the last school term attended.

The OSY must be a first-time applicant of the TESDA scholarship program.

Since it is focused on servicing the marginalized families, TESDA said, the combined net income after tax payments of the applicant’s parents, including his or her income, if any, must not exceed the latest annual regional poverty threshold level for a family of six as determined by the National Economic Development Authority.