The first provincial training center of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority in Benguet will soon rise in Kapangan.
Tesda Director- General Isidro Lapeña together with Benguet Gov. Melchor Diclas, legislative caretaker Rep. Eric Yap, and Kapangan Mayor Manny Fermin led the groundbreaking ceremony of the P10 million-worth three-story building near the municipal hall at Sitio Lomon, Barangay Paykek on Feb. 11.
Lapeña said Tesda graduates in carpentry, masonry, electrical installation, and plumbing will be tapped to work during the building construction.
Tesda Provincial Director Vilma Cab-rera said the municipality has offered the site of the training center under a usufruct agreement for 25 years.
She said the Department of Public Works and Highways has already given its go signal for the building construction after inspecting the site.
The “Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) on Wheels”, which is partly funded from Yap’s personal funds was also launched during the event.
Yap said he will provide the bus and the facilities and materials worth P4.1M while Tesda will offer the scholarship for trainees and the trainer to work on the mobile Tvet bus. They are eyeing the operation of the TVET on wheels by April.
With a trainer on board, the bus will be filled with equipment and facilities for hands-on training.
Mobile training programs available are computer servicing, which is timely during the pandemic where computers are used for digital platforms, electrical installation and maintenance, organic crop production, food processing for excess vegetables not sold in the market and one-town-one-product of respective municipalities for entrepreneurship training including Tesda online programs to be contained in the module.
The program under Tesda would provide free vocational training and assessment especially to far-flung areas of the province. Once the provincial training center is in place, the mobile learning bus will service areas that are far from the municipality.
Lapeña said Tesda has allotted P40M-worth of scholarship programs for interested learners in the province. This would be spread out to the various municipalities of the province.
Meanwhile, Cabrera announced that the tool kits for those enrolled in the 2019 Special Training for Employment Program (STEP) are now available at the provincial office.
But due to the restrictions, the tool kits will be coordinated with the respective municipal governments of the participants, where they could avail of the kits. – Ofelia C. Empian
April 23, 2024
