THE TECHNICAL Education and Skills Development Authority expects more applicants for domestic work assessment this year.

TESDA said it already assessed 54,233 domestic work applicants by mid-2021. This is 7,980 higher than the 46,253 assessed applicants in 2020.

TESDA Director General Isidro Lapeña attributed the increase to the accessible services provided by the agency and the consideration made by the Inter-agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases.

At the height of the community quarantine last year, TESDA launched the online registration for assessment for outbound overseas Filipino workers to ease the application process.

A national certificate is one of the requirements for a Filipino to work overseas.

“They can just download the TESDA App and click the ‘TESDA Abot Lahat ang OFWs’ button where they can choose either to train or to be assessed. If they choose to be assessed, the concerned TESDA provincial or district office will give them the schedule of their assessment in the nearest assessment center,” Lapeña said.

He directed the agency’s regional offices to establish additional assessment centers after the IATF-EID allowed the resumption of face-to-face competency assessment.

“We want to ensure that our kababayans who need to undergo assessment would not have any difficulty in finding an assessment center. In fact, from May to June this year, we opened additional assessment centers in the NCR, Region III and Region IV-A,” the TESDA chief added.

From the total number of assessed Domestic Work Graduates from January to June this year, 49,283 were certified, which is equivalent to 90.87 percent certification rate.