BAGUIO CITY – The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has at least thirty thousand available technical-vocational scholarship slots for Cordillerans to help enhance the government’s aggressive campaign for Filipinos to become entrepreneurs and become productive citizens of the country.
TESDA Director-General Guiling Mamondiong said the 30,000 scholarship slots for the Cordillera is part of the 1 million slots made available by the agency for the whole country under the Barangay Kasanayan Para sa Kaunlaran at Kapayapaan.
However, the TESDA official gave Cordillera officials until April next year to avail of the available scholarship allocation for the region to test their absorptive capacity before possibly increasing the available slots for interested trainees regionwide.
“We want to empower the youth to become productive in terms of becoming entrepreneurs or landing in gainful employment once they are able to acquire the needed skills from the scholarship grants that are available,” Mamondiong stressed.
On data obtained from TESDA-CAR, the Cordillera was able to get some 40,000 scholarship grants in various fields of expertise from the agency over the past six years.
The TESDA official encouraged the youth to visit their respective barangay officials and enlist themselves in the on-going barangay skills registration program which is the basis for approving the beneficiaries of the available scholarship.
He advised interested individuals interested in the scholarship grants that slots from the accredited technical-vocational institutions will be available by next month.
Mamondiong said training interested youth on appropriate skills for entrepreneurship or skilled work will provide a big boost to the economy of remote communities because the skilled workers will contribute to improving lives wherever they are.
Secretary Mamondiong said enlistment for the barangay skills registration program is underway and the results of the said activity will be the basis of municipal, city and provincial executives to endorse whatever results to the regional TESDA offices which will in turn forward the data obtained to the central office for the formulation of the administration’s skills development program.
He added the priority beneficiaries of the available scholarship grants will be the first-time availers while second-time or third time availers will be the least priority to give chance to first-timers.
He assured TESDA offices in the different parts of the country will be very much willing to accommodate interested grantees, provided that their names are included in the inventory of skills in their respective barangays.
By HENT
