In line with the task of achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Philippines is working to reduce poverty, stave off hunger, and improve socio-economic well being of the masses through Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system to help achieve the MDGs. TVET provides education and training opportunities to prepare students and clients for future employment. It addresses the skills training requirements of people . This is necessary to upgrade or even develop new competencies enhancing employability and improving productivity. In the Philippines, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) plays the role of being the sole authority, enabler, manager and promoter of TVET.
TESDA, the lead agency in TVET, is mandated to provide relevant, accessible, high quality and efficient technical education and skills development in support of the development of high quality Filipino middle level manpower responsive to and in accordance with the Philippine development goals and priorities as embodied in Section 2 of the TESDA Act of 1994. In pursuit of its mandate, TESDA enables the Filipino skilled workforce to be more employable, productive and flexible to the changing requirements of industry and the labor markets, both domestic and overseas.
Given its mandate, TESDA envisions to be the leading partner in the development of the Filipino workforce with world-class competence and positive work values. Its mission on the other hand is to provide direction, policies, programs and standards towards quality technical education and skills development.
The demand for a competent and globally competitive middle-level workforce has been increasing both in the domestic and overseas labor markets. TESDA, as the government agency mainly responsible for managing the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, has to ensure the availability of qualified and competent skilled workers to meet this demand and to contribute to the economic development of the country.
Hence, Philippines as a developing country aims to enhance its sectors to strengthen the economy by producing skillful and educated manpower necessary to replace expatriates and eliminate human resources bottlenecks. This will supply the expanding sector of the economy with much needed manpower to achieve rapid economic development. Thus, TESDA Training Centers play an important part in the development of a country. They are expected not only to train and educate people for manpower needs but also to generate new knowledge and technologies aimed at improving the quality of human life.
More so, these training centers providing quality education play an active role in the Philippine economic development to improve their institutional management system and performance coping with higher technical and vocational quality manpower education in the country.
Realizing the role played by the Technical Vocational Institutions in helping the youth in developing of technical and vocational or occupational skills, TESDA Training Centers offer complete trade curriculum with specializations in different areas that provide enough training and technical know-how in various areas that could help them secure employment. The training may also become a significant springboard for more advanced courses and trainings.
However, performance management system in an organization that enhances employee’s productivity through managing their performance. This system primarily aims to improve service delivery within the public sector. Specifically, it intends to improve accountability, performance, communication, efficiency and productivity among civil servants that will resolve problems in the different departments. Some of which were; inadequate planning and management of projects resulting to unforeseen costs, resource wastage and inconsideration to the public needs. The training centers of vocational technical institutions need to qualify their management system that will implicit high performances.
Consequently, De Busk (2004) identifies performance indicators, or individual units of measurement. Likewise, a break down of complex programs was provided into understandable and comparable units, offering the potential to make cross-comparisons in a reasonable way. The purpose of these indicators is to investigate performance measurement’s potential as a useful management tool and to document its use and evolution in an organization. It includes exploring the actual implementation of a system for measuring performance, and the development of tools to increase that system’s function.
In the light of these issues and concerns, this article serves as a feedback mechanism on TESDA Training Centers’ performance management system and implementation of major TVET policies and programs. Hence, it is directed towards a continued development of interventions and strategies to further strengthen the effectiveness and sustainability of TESDA in Region III.
Reference:
Gerald K. De Busk. An Examination of Organizational Performance Measurement System Utilization. (Published Research, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Virginia. 2004).
By: Edwin Riel Bermillo |Education Program Specialist-II | SDO-Bataan
