TESDA transfer to DTI questioned

MANILA, Philippines — An activist youth group has questioned the transfer of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). 

Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK) spokesperson Shara Mae Landicho said the recent executive order that moved TESDA from the Office of the President to the DTI will make the youth more vulnerable to exploitation. 

“Under the guise of enhancing employability and addressing the abused alibi of corporations of jobs mismatch, the Duterte administration aims to expand the ranks of the youth that are not in schools but are enslaved in factories,“ Landicho said. 

“It will only make the youth more vulnerable to exploitative cheap if not totally free, labor schemes by private companies that circumvent labor laws” under the tutelage of the DTI, she added. 

The executive order dated Oct. 31 said the transfer aims “to ensure responsiveness and efficiency in the delivery of essential public services and the attainment of the administration’s ten point socio-economic agenda and the development goals as articulated in the Philippine Development Plan.”

Among the goals is to accelerate development of human capital, which mentions the strengthening and expansion of internship, apprenticeship and dual training programs as its deliberate strategy.

Under DTI, Landicho said they feared TESDA’s mandate to manage and supervise technical education and skills development will be altered into serving as a recruitment and training agency that will supply companies with “cheap labor.”

Landicho alleged the malpractice of cheap, if not free, labor will be institutionalized and further bolstered to increase the company’s margins of profits.

“It is common practice for companies to partner with academic and technical vocational training institutions to administer internship programs for undergraduates in exchange for a certificate of compliance. In worse cases, the students end up paying the company instead of being paid for their labor,” she added. 

TESDA was previously under the Department of Labor and Employment prior to its transfer to the Office of the Cabinet Secretary under the Office of the President in the present Duterte administration.