TESDA to offer free contact tracing program

MANILA, Philippines — Starting September, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) will be offering a free contact tracing training program.

“The new, highly responsive program will run for 15 days, and will be administered via a blended distance and face-to-face learning,” TESDA deputy director general Aniceto Bertiz III said in a statement.

Bertiz said TESDA is implementing the contract tracing training program as part of the government’s intensified fight against the coronavirus disease pandemic.

TESDA director-general Isidro Lapeña earlier issued a memorandum directing the development of the competency-based curriculum for the new training program.

Bertiz said there is an urgent need to train individuals interested in working or volunteering as contact tracers, thus TESDA created the core competency standards for the new training program with the help of the Health Human Resources and Development Bureau of the Department of Health.

“In fact, we are already developing the online materials to be used for the program, which will be offered for free starting September. We intend to initially train volunteers from local government units and large corporations as part of their contact tracing strategies,” Bertiz added.

Trainees for the program must have completed at least 10 years basic education or its equivalent, plus good communication skills.

Contact tracing is the tracking down of infected individuals, and then finding everybody who has been near them and encouraging them to self-isolate at home until it is clear they are not sick.

Bertiz said the DOH and several non-government organizations already have plenty of experience in contact tracing, but in different diseases such as HIV.