New Tesda project: Earn money at home

EARNING while at home may sound a difficult prospect, but not for Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) Director General Joel Villanueva, who vowed on Monday to address the unemployment problem hounding the country.

Villanueva aims to provide technical education and skills training to enhance the wage-employment opportunities of every Filipino while offering livelihood options to generate business even from home.

“When a person starts earning his own income from home, not only does this build self-esteem for him and his family, he also helps the nearby sari-sari store owner make a living-—perhaps, the local labandera as well as the magtataho, and the other members of the community,” Villanueva said. He thinks Tesda can create livelihood opportunities for people in their homes or home provinces.  “. . . .so there will not be any need for them to live in the streets of the metropolis and risk their health as well as the safety of their children.”

Under the “real deal” program, Villanueva said Tesda will endeavor to reach down to the grassroots and provide quality skills training and lifelong education to boost the learners’ employability.

Part of the program is the Skills Training Advocating Reliance and Self-Employment (Stars) which was pioneered in Bohol and adapted by the agency.

The Stars program is a community-based project in partnership with the local government units. It includes unsophisticated but highly technical courses that apply to domestic settings such as tour guiding, manicure/pedicure, hair styling or cutting, driving, cell-phone repair and masseuse training, among others.

If implemented nationwide, the Stars project could create an impact more profound than sending people abroad as Overseas Filipino Worker, Villanueva said. Stars will be made a model in designing other Tesda programs.

Villanueva said Tesda might launch market surveys to determine the potentials for the skills to be offered in the trainings, and identify the kind of support to help the Stars program achieve its self-employment objectives.

Tesda, he said, would likewise  look into the possibility of building informal-sector associations, linking trainees with specialized training providers using the agency’s scholarship vouchers, providing supplementary training in basic competences, and arranging post-training support like marketing, access to credit and business advice, etc., among other things, to advance the intent of the Stars program. –Claudeth Mocon, BUsinessmirror