TESDA bares top IT schools in employment success

MANILA, Philippines – Graduates of the more popular computer school chains performed well and enjoyed a high success rate in getting information technology (IT) jobs.

Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Director General Joel Villanueva said that their job absorption rate review of the scholarship beneficiaries of the agency, particularly under the so-called P6.5-billion President Gloria Scholarships (PGS), showed that IT school Informatics had the highest job absorption rate with more than 70 percent.

IT school chains STI and AMA Computer College, made up the top three list of IT schools whose graduates had the highest employment success rate.

TESDA is looking at the job absorption rate to assess the quality of education of computer schools who were given PGS scholarship vouchers under the previous administration. The findings will be used as basis to determine which schools will be given TESDA scholarship vouchers to accomodate government TVET scholars.

A Department of Budget and Management (DBM) review of the billions of TVET scholarships spent by TESDA for the period 2006 to 2009, showed that the spending added up to a whopping P8.1 billion, with 2009 seeing a record high allocation of P5.7 billion.

“Three years after the start of the program and despite the substantial increase int its budget provision for 2008, only 101,717 or 28.5 percent of the 356,622 PGS graduates were able to find employment,” the report noted.

Additional P5M scholarship for Cebu HS graduates

Meanwhile, TESDA has allocated an additional P5 million for the free vocational training of poor high school graduates in Cebu.

The scholarships covered courses in commercial cooking, housekeeping, food and beverage, welding, machining, and refrigeration and air-conditioning to be provided by the University of the Visayas and Regional Training Center.

TESDA has also forged a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Cebu City government and a division of the Department of Education (DepEd) in Cebu in selecting the beneficiaries and implementation of the program.

TESDA opted to prioritize Cebu considering the data that between 80 to 85 percent of high school graduates from public schools have no opportunity to proceed to college due to financial difficulty. — Rainier Allan Ronda, Mayen Jaymalin, Philippine Star