Senator urges TESDA to boost digital literacy
By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter
THE TECHNICAL Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) should partner with international technology firms to develop digital courses for the youth to address digital illiteracy in the Philippines, a senator said on Thursday.
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on TESDA’s proposed P15.2-billion budget for 2024, Senator Regina “Loren” B. Legarda floated the idea of the agency collaborating with Google to develop courses on data analytics and information technology support to help them find work faster.
“Is it possible for TESDA to collaborate with an international company like Google, which is represented in the Philippines, to offer digital courses, considering that we are number one in terms of digital illiteracy for children,” she asked TESDA Deputy Director General Rosanna Urdaneta, citing a 2019 United Nations report.
Ms. Urdaneta said her agency was actively working on developing a diploma course on cyber security.
Department of Information and Communications Undersecretary (DICT) Jeffrey Ian C. Dy told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that his agency is “particularly confident” that the country has improved in ICT literacy.
Meanwhile, Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian questioned why only 64% of TESDA graduates took assessments for national certifications.
“In order for these graduates to get employed, they need certification. Employers will value the certification of those courses,” he told the same hearing. “Those are technical courses and I would assume that the value of those courses is in the certification.”
TESDA Deputy Director General Aniceto R. Bertiz III clarified that graduates who did not take assessments took courses that did not have training regulations. He said some of those courses included creative web design and other ICT courses and language training courses.
The Asian Development Bank in a July report said the Philippines needs to develop the technical and vocational education training sector to boost the Philippine workforce’s competitiveness.
