00:00It's incredibly important, particularly now that most companies are beginning to shift
00:07towards what we call a skills-based organization, where they identify very specific skills that
00:15they expect their workforce to be able to do.
00:20So lifelong learning is incredibly crucial because of the changes.
00:28You can assume that by the time you reach—which is what Singapore assumes, for example—that
00:33by the time you reach 40, no matter how high you have climbed, many of your skills are
00:40no longer relevant.
00:42New jobs have emerged, new tools have emerged, and therefore you need to upskill and upgrade
00:47yourself.
00:48Sometimes not by very much, but nonetheless, the need to adapt is there because technology
00:55changes so, so rapidly now.
00:58So there's an ongoing discussion about the senior high school curriculum, and we need
01:03to try to make sure that the students, particularly those that take the tech walk tracks, are
01:09employable or employment-ready by the time they graduate.
01:17So part of the initiative in the curriculum development and design is to find ways to
01:24make sure that the training regulations needed for specific national certificates of TESDA
01:30can be embedded so that the students have the time to do the training and the capacity
01:38to be assessed and then provided with their NCs.
01:43The other one is, because TESDA is so closely aligned with industry, the development of
01:53an apprenticeship program, or what we call in the general eBet, in the general learnership,
02:01in the eBet law, there's a whole category for work immersion even for senior high school
02:08students.
02:09So TESDA is also part and parcel of trying to figure out what would be the most appropriate
02:15types of training, training plans, for example, of work immersion, and even the extension
02:23of the amount of time students can spend in industry.
02:29That's all part of the conversations that we are having now, but it is a work in progress.
02:34What it does is actually allow students the greater capacity to explore their passions
02:41and what it is that they may want to do.
02:45There will always be a cost benefit that students and parents, I suppose, need to face, that
02:54if, for example, they really want to do STEM, there may be a way by which they need to take
03:00mostly STEM subjects, right?
03:03But the way it's structured now doesn't preclude their exploration of other potential pathways
03:09and tracks as they become, in fact, college ready in the academic track.
03:16But even then, if they choose to go to work after that, then they need to find ways to
03:22make up for whatever training they may have lacked or be ready for slightly longer apprenticeships,
03:31perhaps, which is, again, another category within the newly passed enterprise-based education
03:39and training law.
03:42It's a two-year cycle, right? So grade 11 will change this June, so it's mostly the
03:48core subjects that will be changed.
03:51Ongoing will be attempts to identify specific TVET skills even within the academic track
03:58subjects that students may choose to take moving forward. I think that's going to be
04:05a consequence of our micro-credential system that we're working out now. Hopefully, a few
04:12of those will be ready for the school year from June onwards.
04:16A study at the beginning was to show that maybe only two out of five, so that's 20 percent,
04:26wanted or willing. But the most recent one is that has gone up to 60 percent, and it
04:32looks like it's going up even more. The only way to ensure that is for TESDAS certification
04:41process to be truly industry-aligned.
04:45So if our certification is verified in terms of what kind of skills and the proficiency
04:51levels of those skills with what industry expects, and we fulfill it as a promise, the
04:58market will shift. The industries will take on more and more high school, I suppose, senior
05:08high school graduates rather than college graduates per se. Along the same lines, the
05:16reforms in the apprenticeship program should mean it is even more robust. So if they are
05:22a senior in senior high school, they can get an apprentice if they are not qualified. Maybe
05:27one more year, but after one year, they are really qualified for the position. Which really,
05:36or sometimes two years if one year is not enough. Most countries in the world have a
05:40three-year cycle or length for a worker to undergo an apprenticeship, regardless of whether
05:48or not they go to college. So it depends on the domain, the industrial sector. It depends
05:56on the type of job the student is looking for. But I think the current conversations
06:03between CHED, TESDA, and DepEd is creating a clearer career progression and pathways
06:11for our students, including skills, qualifications, and apprenticeships, for example.
06:22So the request is out there. As many, for example, of PBED's own business members,
06:32but not just PBED, the Chamber of Commerce, all the Chambers of Commerce, for example,
06:39if they were willing to take on dual training systems, if they were willing to take on apprenticeships,
06:48if they were willing to take part in the enterprise-based education and training, to create the fast-track
06:55training that the students need, that the industry needs to ensure that we can bridge
07:03the job skills mismatch, the more of them take it on, the faster this transition will
07:12become. Well, we don't. It's a completely separate age group. It's a completely separate
07:20type of training. But what TESDA, CHED, and DepEd, although this is being led by DepEd,
07:27one of the ways to do it, as I had already said, is to really partner with civil society.
07:37There are various programs in government to adopt a school. There are various incentives
07:43for private businesses to take part in capacitating our people. And this is not just for TESDA.
07:50So you can adopt a school in DepEd and give them the tablets that they need. And there
07:56are many such efforts. The question now is, can it be systematic? And can it be at scale?
08:04To make sure, in fact, that we do it for enough of our students. So the more partners we can,
08:11the wider we can spread the load and the burden, and in fact, the greater impact there will
08:17be financially. But beyond the financial, the breadth of partnerships and the breadth
08:26of stakeholder participation impresses upon the general public how important the sector
08:34and the initiative is. That might be, in fact, the greatest gain that we might get as a country.
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