PCCI, Tesda forge deal to address skill-job mismatch

The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) has forged a partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) for a joint project that will help address skill-job mismatch in the country and ease the current unemployment woes.

A memorandum of understanding yesterday was signed for the implementation of the PCCI-Tesda Tech-Voc project (PTTP), which was meant to promote and expand the reach of technical vocational training among business chambers, industry and trade associations and even individual enterprises.

Under the agreement, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry will share and co-use their training facilities and materials, as well as trainors over the next two years.

Philippine Enterprises will be encouraged to make available training spaces in their respective establishments.

The country’s largest business group on the other hand is expected take a more active role in setting competency standards and the assessment and certification of the trainees to ensure that what they learn from their courses will hold value in the real world.

“We have reconstituted and empowered our Tech Voc Committee headed by past PCCI president (Alberto Fenix Jr.) to institute programs and projects that will create a pool of qualified, competent and job-ready workforce to contribute to the productivity and sustainability of enterprises and to the employment generation and poverty reduction goals of the government,” PCCI president Alfredo M. Yao said.

Yao stressed that they are undertaking the project because the institution considered human resource to be the most important factor of production.

“It is with human resource that capital, land, and materials are developed, enhanced, and innovated,” Yao explained.

“The Philippines has proven that its human resources are worthy of world-class recognition. We need to seize the opportunity that this globally integrated environment offers. Internally, we need to improve the level of policy reform, and pay attention to the basic spectrum of human resources development, which is education,” he added.  Amy R. Remo