BAGUIO CITY –  The  Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) must not be regarded anymore as a lowly career option  but rather as a stepping stone towards a better life with increasing employment demand locally and abroad.

It is  high time for the students, new  graduates and for the general public to have a change of mindset  into learning employable technical or vocational (Tech-Voc) skills where people can be employed after  three  or six months on training .

This was stressed by Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA-CAR) Regional Director Cenon Querubin in  a media briefing  for  Cordillera National awardees in the recently concluded 2010 TESDA Institutional Awards.

‘TESDA has  already introduced the competency phase approach in tech-voc education and training and we have consulted different top industry captain and experts for our training regulations,’ Querubin stressed. 

In a recent statement, Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda D. Baldoz also encouraged youths, students, and even fresh graduates, to take a closer look at in-demand occupations and develop the corresponding skills to avail of these job opportunities found in the country’s major and emerging industries.

Baldoz  said  students should take the appropriate matching courses or link up with  TESDA, DOLE’s attached agency, and its training centers nationwide for counseling, guidance, and training.  This will address the prevailing job-skills mismatch and also provide young people broad opportunities and productive alternatives in the local economy in lieu of brain drain or disadvantageous migration of Filipino workers abroad.

Meanwhile, TESDA’s Institutional Awards aims to give due recognition to Tech-Voc graduates and institutions  who excel in their chosen field, achieve in their life or chosen profession and somehow contributed in the development of their respective communities.

This year Cordillera bagged  three major awards. Reynante Cobcobo,  an Igorot beauty care expert and  proprietor of three beauty salons in La Trinidad and Bontoc, Mt. Province,  won as the 2010 National TESDA Idol.

Xijen College of Mountain Province was also awarded as the national winner in the Institutional category of TESDA’s Kabalikat Awards.  Serafin M. Lauro, a TESDA-CAR Regional training Center Machining Trainer, emerged as champion in the National Trainers Encounter – machining category. **Lito Dar/PIA