THE TECHNICAL Education and Skills Development Authority aims to forge more partnerships to address job-skills mismatch in the country.

TESDA Deputy Director General Aniceto Bertiz III said that the agency has been implementing enterprise-based training programs through its “EBT to the Max” promotion campaign.

“EBT to the Max” has five learning modalities – Program on Accelerating Farm School Establishment, Apprenticeship Program, Learnership Program, Supervised Industry Learning, and Dual Training System.

Training programs under “EBT to the Max” are implemented in both the tech-voc institutions and their partner companies.

“We have to expand the services of TESDA in order to reach the unreached, serve the underserved, and assist those in the fringes of society,” Bertiz said.

“We are very grateful to the private companies who partner with us. And we hope that more companies will join us in helping our workforce,” Bertiz said.

One “EBT to the Max” implementer, Dualtech Training Center, has been conducting a DTS program.  In the DTS instructional mode, learning takes place alternately in two venues: the school or training center and the company.

Arnold Morfe, president of Dualtech Training Center, said the coordination between the company and the institution will help tech-voc students not only to learn the job but also the work attitude needed in the industry.

“Higit sa teknolohiya, magkakaroon din sila ng pagmamahal sa trabaho. Magkakaroon sila ng work attitude na talagang tugma sa pangangailangan ng industriya,” he said.

Fr. Gaudencio Carandang, Jr., TVET director of Don Bosco Youth Center which implements a Supervised Industry Learning program, said the government-private partnership is important because they complement each other.

“Maganda rin sa private institutions like us na may government partnership ka kasi we don’t do it for ourselves but we do it for the young people,” Carandang said.