The City Council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved on first reading a proposed ordinance institutionalizing the ‘Urban Daing’ skills festival in the city every last week of September of every year, creating a working committee and providing funds for the said purpose.
Under the proposed resolution authored by Councilor Vladimir Cayabas, the said festival aims to highlight the relevance of high quality work and craftsmanship through relevant skills and competencies aside from mastering while promoting active collaboration among various stakeholders like those from the technical-vocational institutions in the city, those that are in the creative centers and industries, budding entrepreneurs and local talents all partnering with the local government unit and other government agencies like the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Department of labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT).
‘Ubdan daing’ is an Ibaloi term which means quality work.
Among the objectives of the proposed measure include to increase awareness on the importance of relevant technical skills that everyone must acquire; promote technical-vocational education and training as an equally important learning career path; discover local talents, competent and killed youth who could represent the city in the national and international skills Olympics; will thrive to improve the local skills index in general which in the process would help the city in identifying the needed skill-based training for its constituents; avenue for tech-voc training centers and local entrepreneurs to meet their counterparts from various industries for training and employment collaboration; highlight the correlation between quality work with that of acquiring relevant skills strengthened by personable attitude as essential attributes for one to be a work place high performer and promoting the city as a dynamic learning city for all levels, from basic tech-voc to higher education.
The proposed festival activities are skills fair, local skills Olympics, skills and innovation summit cum career fair, capacity development for trainers and creative skills advocates and such other activities and programs as determined by the committee.
The ‘ubdan daing’ skills committee shall be chaired by the local chief executive while the technical vocational institution association president will serve as the vice chairperson. The action officer will be a presentative from the City Administrator’s Office while the members are the chairperson of the City Council Committee on Education, representative from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) Baguio-Benguet chapter, local youth development officer, representatives from TESDA, DepEd, CHED, DOST, DICT, DOLE and DTI, two representatives from senior high schools offering technical-vocational learning strand, representative from Baguio Creative Council, two representatives from tech-voc institutions and representative from People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP).
The ordinance provided that the amount of P350,000 shall be appropriated by the local government from any available source of funds for the said purpose and that the same shall be included in the annual budget of the City mayor’s Office subject to the regular accounting and government auditing system.
