OUTBOUND overseas Filipino workers may source their needed learning prerequisites within a shorter period with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority’s (Tesda) compressed 12-day blended training program for Domestic Work National Certificate (NC) II.
Though shortened, the program still contains basic, common and core competencies vital for passing the proficiency assessment in the said work category.
During its recent virtual launch, Tesda Chief Isidro S. Lapeña welcomed the first batch of the pilot program’s trainees composed of 20 workers bound for Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.
“This program has been conceptualized with the situation of our outbound household workers in mind. We recognize their need to be deployed immediately, but Tesda would like to make sure they are properly trained before deployment,” said Lapeña. “We want to prevent situations where domestic workers are abused by their employers because of alleged incompetence.”
Supported by and in partnership with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the pilot training program will be conducted by the Fair Training Center in Parañaque City.
“We hope that effective online training will translate to lower training cost, without sacrificing the quality of training,” remarked ILO Country Director Khalid Hassan. “I would like to congratulate Tesda on this important pilot initiative… showcasing relevant and safe practices to address training [during the] pandemic.”
The blended training will combine a 10-day online training, as well as a two-day face-to-face training and familiarization with related equipment.
The specialized program will run for six months, with a minimum of 60 trainees. It will be monitored by Tesda offices in Muntinlupa City, Parañaque City, Las Piñas City, Taguig City, and Pateros.
This will be evaluated based on the certification rate of the trainees who completed the pilot program and their acceptance by prospective employers.
If proven effective, Lapeña said that it will be immediately recommended for adoption by other training centers offering domestic work.
Meanwhile, the regular training program on Domestic Work NC II with a nominal training duration of 218 hours is still being implemented.