SENATOR Joel Villanueva on Monday tagged the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority as the education agency most responsive to change.

“My belief has never wavered. Among education agencies, TESDA is the most responsive to change because TVET is not only flexible but also permeable,” Villanueva said.

However, during the hearing on the proposed 2022 TESDA budget, the chairman of the committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education stressed that while programs and activities of TESDA are important, the agency is on the verge of becoming irrelevant.

“And we know that relevance is crucial in job creation, especially for an agency like TESDA, which is at the heart of the country’s National Employment Recovery Strategy or NERS,” the senator further said.

The lawmaker explained that when it comes to training and jobs, the situation is always changing and the changes were accelerated by the pandemic.

“We cannot deny the potential of our agency to help our people back on their feet, despite the COA findings and the ensuing criticisms against TESDA, especially when it comes to low utilization of scholarship funds,” he said.

“We’re banking on the track record of TESDA. Halimbawa po, for the past decade, we were able to produce 20 million graduates and a lot of them, about 70 percent of them were employed, just in a span of 10 years,” the senator further stressed.