TAGUIG CITY -- The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) is pushing for more collaboration aimed at strengthening its partnerships with the industry and directly addressing the job-skills mismatch in the Filipino workforce.

TESDA Deputy Director General for TESD Operations Aniceto D. Bertiz III shared that the Agency has been implementing enterprise-based training (EBT) programs through its “EBT to the Max” promotion campaign.

“EBT to the Max” has five learning modalities. These are Program on Accelerating Farm School Establishment (PAFSE), Apprenticeship Program, Learnership Program, Supervised Industry Learning, and Dual Training System (DTS).

Training programs under “EBT to the Max” are implemented in both the tech-voc institutions and their partner companies.

“We are very grateful to the private companies who partner with us. And we hope that more companies will join us in helping our workforce,” Bertiz said.

One “EBT to the Max” implementer, Dualtech Training Center, has been conducting a DTS program. In the DTS instructional mode, learning takes place alternately in two venues: the school or training center and the company.

Arnold Morfe, president of Dualtech Training Center, said the coordination between the company and the institution under the DTS will help tech-voc students not only to learn the job but also the work attitude needed in the industry.

“Higit sa teknolohiya, magkakaroon din sila ng pagmamahal sa trabaho. Magkakaroon sila ng work attitude na talagang tugma sa pangangailangan ng industriya,” he said.

Likewise, Fr. Gaudencio Carandang, Jr., TVET director of Don Bosco Youth Center which implements a Supervised Industry Learning program, said the government-private partnership is important because they complement each other.

“Maganda rin sa private institutions like us na may government partnership ka kasi we don’t do it for ourselves but we do it for the young people,” Carandang said.

Bertiz expressed his gratitude to companies which have partnered with TESDA in implementing the “EBT to the Max” program as he urged others to do the same in order to address skills-job mismatch.

“We have to expand the services of TESDA in order to reach the unreached, serve the underserved, and assist those in the fringes of society,” he said.

To date, there are now 1,876 institutions and their partner companies which are implementing “EBT to the Max” programs in the country. (TESDA)