Senate approves bill declaring August 25 as National Tech-Voc Day

The Senate on passed today on third and final reading a bill declaring August 25 of every year as National Tech-Voc Day to promote technical and vocational education and training in the country.

"If we pay increased attention to tech-voc as a nation, we can harness its power in creating jobs, increasing our workers' productivity, securing the future of our industries, and achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development," Senator Joel Villanueva, chair of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment and Human Resources Development, said.

"The observance of a National Tech-Voc day would pave the way in uplifting the morale and dignity of blue-collar workers in the country, whose jobs are still seen as second rate," Villanueva, sponsor of Senate Bill No. 209, added.

According to him, technical vocational education and training (tech-voc) in the Philippines has undergone major transformation since the creation of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) on August 25, 1994.

"For the past seven years, over 13 million Filipinos graduated in various tech-voc courses, majority of them or 65 percent found employment locally and abroad. This is considering that some of the trainees took multiple courses which opened up a lot of opportunities for them in terms of employment and livelihood," Villanueva said.

"Our scholars even registered an employment rate of 70 percent and has even reached 96.4 percent in specific sectors like the semiconductor and electronics industry," Villanueva added.

Today, according to Villanueva, tech-voc is recognized as an important pillar in the country's overall human resources development strategy because it is rapid, flexible, jobs-oriented, competency based and can easily lead people to jobs. (Yvonne A. Almirañez)