TESDA Champions for Industry-led TVET
and Upskilling Programs in Manufacturing

25 September 2024 – The Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development (AMDev) Program hosted its second stakeholder forum at the Makati Diamond Residences. The event emphasized the crucial importance of industry-driven training programs and collaborations across various sectors for workforce development.

TESDA Director General Francisco Benitez emphasized the call to further work with industry to translate industry requirements to more competency standards to make TESDA develop demand-driven TVET, and most importantly, industry-driven TVET.

“We do need to make sure that we maximize our workforce’s fourth industrial revolution transition to higher skills and higher value work in target growth sectors. For all of these actions, TESDA cannot do it alone. We are thankful to USAID for supporting policies and programs like AMDev that aim to recalibrate and strengthen our TVET ecosystem to produce graduates who are competitive and agile, ready to take on new jobs in our changing economy.”, he said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported an increase in underemployment to 12.1%, affecting 6.08 million Filipinos in June 2024. This highlights the persistent issues of job-skill mismatches and job quality, emphasizing the need for strategies to bridge the skills gap with employer requirements. Benitez also echoes the potential of forging strong private sectoral partnerships to expand enterprise-based training to align trainee programs with market and industry needs. The Enterprise-Based Education and Training (EBET) bill is positioned to be signed at the executive level in the near future.

“There is a huge need to coordinate our efforts and consolidate our investments to make sure the Filipino worker has a competitive edge in this competitive region. This is where the strength of AMDev comes through – the intersection of government, academia, and industry meet.” USAID Director for Education, Michelle Chen shared in her message of support.

AMDev, with its committed partnership with TESDA and several industry experts, has developed 10 Level III Competency Standards and Competency-Based Curricula for production operators and maintenance technicians in the manufacturing sector.

The stakeholder forum was widely attended by officials from government agencies, leaders from manufacturing companies, and academic representatives from higher education institutes.

The Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Development (AMDev) Program is a joint initiative by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Unilab Foundation, focused on improving the competencies of the Philippine manufacturing workforce. The AMDev Stakeholder Forum is an annual gathering to highlight the program’s achievements for workforce development and convene multi-sectoral leaders in advancing a shared vision in upskilling and reskilling Filipino workers.

Know more about AMDev and its work: https://mbc.com.ph/advanced-manufacturing-skills-council-amsc/