Re-Educating the Public About TESDA

Advocacy and promotion is one of the constant programs of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).  Through the years, and through many directors general, it has tried to project an image to the public through purchase of media block times, information caravans, industry-government organization partnerships, distribution of literature intended for the masses and similar activities.  In all these, there seems to be basic questions in the public's mind it tried and continues to try to answer.  Among them:

• Is TESDA training?  Even before TESDA became TESDA (that is, before National Manpower and Youth Council, Department of Education's Bureau of Technical Vocational Education (BTVE), and the Department of Labor and Employment's Apprenticeship programs were fused under one authority through Republic Act 7796), the most prominent body for technical training was, well, equivalent to training in the public's mind.  And rightly so.  Complex NMYC's inner workings might have been, it's main thrust was that of training.  When TESDA was created, the people of NMYC formed its core.  Thus, although there may be big differences between the intention for TESDA from that of NMYC, corporate culture and mindset more or less remained that of NMYC.  As TESDA moved on, many among its employees had NMYC mindsets--technical training.  Since most of these employees are the ones people tend to have direct contact with, the public remained to associate TESDA with training.  Although there are now significant changes in the way corporate TESDA thinks of its of itself, the training mindset remains one of the "baggages" from which TESDA tries to disassociate itself.

• Is TESDA the regulator of TVET?  For better or worse, this perception seemed to have surfaced when TESDA began to assert itself along well, regulation of TVET courses, mainly through its Unified TVET Program Registration and Accreditation System (or UTPRAS).  Especially when TESDA sought the assistance of local government units and the media in calling the attention of schools that thought they could just offer short-term or technical courses like they used to, technical school administrators began to think of TESDA as a big brother who watches their every move.  This was somehow reinforced by programs originally meant to improve the quality of TVET such as compliance audits and quality awards.  Right now, many schools vacillate between regarding TESDA as a hindrance and protector of their institution depending on how it is easy for them to comply with its course registration requirements.  Again, this is another burden many TESDA officials and personnel have to contend with especially when directly dealing with training institutions.

• Is TESDA the TVET equivalent of Professional Regulation Commission (or PRC)?  The PRC regulates the issuance of licenses to professionals such as that for engineers, nurses, doctors and teachers.  With TESDA's competency assessment program where skilled workers get certified as possessing the minimum skills for a particular qualification (or roughly, occupation; the two terms are not actually equal) skilled workers (and employers) began to associate TESDA with licensing.  This was reinforced when other government agencies such as the Department of Trade and Industry began requiring at least some of the technical workers of shops to have competency certificates from TESDA related to their business.  Because of these, problems attached to licensing began to seep through TESDA's bureaucracy also including that of bribery, stealing or selling of competency assessment questions and outright falsification of national certificates.

• Is TESDA scholarship?  This thinking is not as rooted as the previous ones since TESDA got associated with scholarships just recently despite years of implementation of PESFA programs. (PESFA stands for Private Education Scholarship Fund Assistance.)  This is probably because the most recently government scholarship programs implemented by TESDA were done with much hype, complete with jingles, dedicated radio programs and personalities.  Due to the massive funds infused to scholarships such as the Pangulong Gloria Scholarship program of the past administration, some schools hastily put up courses simply to qualify as training institutions for the courses included in the program.  While what TESDA paid to the schools for conducting the training programs was actually not that much per head per course, the massive volume of students targeted under the program produced economies of scale that made the offerings attractive.  Thus, for some students TESDA became the equivalent of free training and for some schools, it became synonymous with what is now subsidized training.  As TESDA moves on to pursue other programs related to its primary objectives under its charter, it has to struggle with issues (such as unpaid scholarship vouchers) and mindsets associated with scholarship programs.

TESDA is also associated with things and ideas aside from those mentioned above.  But these seems to be the most prominent boxes it has to get itself out when communicating itself to the public.  The story is much like the blind men of Hindustan touching different parts of an elephant: there is some truth to each of these but one has to take a look at who is talking and where he stands.  Each is a partial and often distorted picture of the agency and each is a reason why TESDA, like many government agencies of the government, has to constantly include promotion and advocacy in its programs.

Some books from Amazon.com that might be of interest:

Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others
Cardinal Rules of Advocacy: Understanding and Mastering Fundamental Principles of Persuasion
Advocacy
Advocacy in the Human Services