SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian proposed an additional P10 million budget for the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority to enable it to develop a skills demand forecasting model or strategy to help address jobs-skills mismatch among Technical-Vocational Education and Training graduates.

The proposed P10 million allocation, which was carried in the Senate’s committee report on the 2022 national budget, is appropriated under TESDA’s Promotion, Development, Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation of Technical Education and Skills Development Scholarships and Student Assistance Programs.

“I would like to request from TESDA a strategy to address the jobs-training mismatch. This is a cause for concern because we are allocating P14 billion for training but if those being trained will not end up getting a job that they are trained for, then that’s a big problem,” Gatchalian said.

“We proposed earmarking P10 million to develop a skills demand forecasting model and this is to address the mismatch. I would like to request TESDA to take a look at this P10 million and see how to operationalize this,” he added.

The National Economic and Development Authority and state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies will provide technical assistance in developing the forecasting model or strategy.

Using TESDA’s Individual Graduate Tracer Surveys for the years 2013, 2014 and 2017, the Asian Development Bank estimates that mismatch rates among TVET graduates hover between 60 percent and 80 percent.

In 2017, 70 percent of the respondents were employed in jobs which were not the occupational expectations of their respective TVET programs.

Gatchalian also urged TESDA to increase enrollment in enterprise-based TVET programs, which accounted for only 4 percent of total enrollment from 2014-2020.

Enterprise-based TVET programs, which are conducted within companies, offer an edge because they align with Industry 4.0 as well as rapidly evolving workplace and workshop needs, the ADB said.