Pinoy TVET

The technical-vocational education and training sector plays a key role in developing the economy of the Philippines.  Prior to the creation of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), concerns for middle-level skills were handled by the Department of Education through its Bureau of Technical Vocational Education.  However, studies commissioned by the government recommended the tri-focalization of education to enable the government to address skills mismatch in the labor market.  The result is the concentration of the Department of Education in basic education, TESDA in technical-vocational education and training or TVET and the Commission on Higher Education in well, higher education (that is, degree courses and post-graduate studies).

The primary role of TESDA is to manage the TVET sector (that is, the aggregate of suppliers and stakeholders of TVET) and make it relevant, effective and efficient.  As manager of TVET, TESDA likes to describe itself as a leading partner.  This says a lot about how it ought to operate: leading without domineering, or even participating in areas of technical education and skills development where the private sector has already sufficient presence.

There's a lot happening in the TVET sector right now.  And this is not only because TESDA, the manager of TVET, is under a new leadership--that of Sec. Joel Villanueva.  Aside from new policies and programs that will probably be implemented under his administration, the TVET sector is under pressure from the forces of the economy, demographic shifts, regional geopolitics, technological developments, and cultural and ideological changes among other things.  The TVET sector is the primary producer of the bulk of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), as well as that of most local workers.  Even short-term developments, such as the present chaos in Libya and other countries in the Middle East can create pressures in the TVET sector as well as the more subtle, yet more important developments, such as the graying of populations of Europe, Canada and other countries and the greater integration of regional economies.

Thus, the TVET sector is worth watching.

I hope this blog will contribute something to the conversation on TVET, and I hope both the buyers and sellers of TVET will find something useful in what I post here.

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