MANILA, Philippines - Public school students need not worry much of not getting armchair in the coming school year.
The Technical Education Skills Development Authority (TESDA) chief Joel Villanueva said the agency is expected to manufacture at least 50,000 new armchairs for public schools nationwide.
Villanueva noted that the Jollibee Group Foundation, Inc. donated P2 million to help in the production of armchairs from the logs confiscated by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
“We are happy to have the Jollibee Group Foundation on board in this initiative of helping ease the shortage of armchairs, and at the same time providing training and livelihood to TESDA graduates,†Villanueva said.
Villanueva noted that TESDA, DENR and Jollibee have forged a memorandum agreement that they would work together to help solve the shortage of armchairs in public schools in the country.
Under the agreement, the DENR will turn over the logs converted into lumber to TESDA, which will recruit and train workers to manufacture them into armchairs in their training and production centers.
Training certificates will be issued to those who will participate in the training and production processes. Graduates who will pass the competency assessment will be issued their National Certificate (NC) or Certificate of Competency (CoC) by TESDA.
The Department of Education, with the assistance of Jollibee, will then identify the beneficiary schools of the furniture. A project management team has been created to oversee the implementation of the project.
Villanueva said TESDA hopes to produce around 50,000 armchairs to help ease the shortage in the CARAGA region and other areas. DENR previously confiscated around seven million board feet of logs in CARAGA.