Harmonizing TVET with Basic and Higher Education
TESDA Director General Sec. Joel Villanueva recently announced during a forum with technical-vocational institutions that his agency is now working with the Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education to "harmonize" basic education and tertiary courses with technical-vocational education and training (TVET). ( Philippine Information Agency , September 20, 2011) The primary reason for this seems to be to enable graduates or even dropouts of basic education (mainly, high school) and bachelor courses to get employable skills (provided by TVET) even if they move out of the system before they finish schooling. In this arrangement, TVET is inserted in basic and higher education as a sort of parachute that the student can open in case he needs to jettison out his course for one reason or another. Philippine education cohort estimates indicate that for every 100 pupils who enroll in elementary, only 66 graduate and of this 66, only 58 are able to enroll in high sch...