By Liza Soriano
Senator Win Gatchalian emphasized on Saturday that the programs of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) should be aligned with the most in-demand jobs today until 2025.
The Department of Labor and Employment’s Bureau of Local Employment’s (DOLE-BLE) Jobs and Labor Market Forecast and the TESDA Skills Need Anticipation Survey indicate that until 2025, information technology business process management (IT-BPM), construction, logistics, agriculture, and health will be the industries with the highest employment growth rates.
Using data from TESDA, the senator’s office was able to break down and analyze the 2022 Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET) enrollment by sector.
The top five sectors with the highest enrollment in TVET are agriculture, forestry, and fishery (18.3%), tourism (16%), programs with no training regulations (14.7%), automotive and land transportation (9.6%), and social, community development and other services (8.3%).
“None of the top five most popular courses offered by TESDA are aligned with industries that will grow in the next three to five years. Again, we see a lot of jobs-skills mismatch even at the tech-voc level and this is one aspect that we’re also addressing at the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II),” said Gatchalian, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education and EDCOM II Co-Chairperson.
“It’s deeply concerning that we provide scholarship programs to our graduates who don’t end up in the fastest-growing industries of our country,” he added.
The senator’s office also analyzed data from the June 2021 Labor Force Survey and found out that among senior high school graduates who took the technical-vocational livelihood track, 50.6% are employed in elementary occupations.
(ai/mnm)
