MORE and more people are optimistic that the Philippines, acknowledged as one of the world’s major exporters of quality skilled and unskilled manpower, is still capable of further raising productivity, improving product quality and enhancing workers’ employability.  

This is the reason why there’s a need to strengthen and expand the  Enterprise-Based Training (EBT) program of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), headed by Director-General Joel Villanueva,  a former member of the House of Representatives.

The EBT is implemented through the following modalities: the Apprenticeship/Learnership Program (AP/LP), Dual Training System/Dualized Training Program (DTS/DTP) and On-the-Job Training (OJT) program, according to the TESDA chief.

Institutionalized through the enactment of Republic Act No. 7686 in 1994, the DTS/DTP is an instructional delivery system of technical and vocational education and training that combines in-plant and in-school training.

Under the apprenticeship program, which has fallen by the wayside as a method for training future workers, a trainee learns the skills the practical way at the jobsite. “It has always been proven that the best place to acquire skills is in the workplace,” said Villanueva.

“For example, one learns baking by working with, observing and imitating an experienced baker or tutor,” said Villanueva, who also noted the declining number of private companies implementing the apprenticeship/learnership program.

Of the more than 3,600 companies and industries in Central Luzon, an industrial hub, only 39 are linked with TESDA, formerly known as the National Manpower and Youth Council under the Department of Labor and Employment, in implementing the EBT program.

With more and more foreign workers seeking jobs in foreign lands, the Philippines ought to produce high-quality professionals if we are to remain as one of the world’s principal sources of dependable skilled and unskilled manpower.

And we doff our hat to the top leadership of TESDA, headed by Villanueva, for preparing our workers to be globally competitive.

We cannot overemphasize the importance of training and retraining members of our labor force at a time when hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, including college graduates, find it hard to look for jobs because of “job mismatch.”