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By Sam Mediavilla, Reporter
President Arroyo on Monday
launched e-Tesda and FAST, two new programs of the new Technical
Education and Skills Development Authority that will revolutionize
the delivery of technical and vocation learning to Filipinos.
The e-Tesda and FAST programs,
said Secretary Augusto Syjuco, Tesda director general, will give
Filipino skills a competitive edge over their rivals in the global
skills market.
The e-Tesda system makes all the
existing Tesda skills-learning and development programs available on
line and through other cybertech means of information delivery.
The PGMA-FAST program will speed
up the assessment of Filipino workers’ skills and make it easier
and faster to give them the certificates that Tesda or the
educational institutions they have been trained at to see if they
have completed all the required courses satisfactorily.
Thus assessed, the Filipino
skilled worker then becomes, in Secretary Syjuco’s words, a
“Sertipikadong Pinoy.”
The Tesda director general
singled out The Manila Times Language Institute, the IETI/Thomson
Course Technology and the Don Bosco Technology Institute as the
institutions that have the best Teach, Train, Test software to
implement the e-Tesda system.
The Manila Times Language
Institute could be accessed through Tesda institutions based in
Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.
Syjuco said the three groups
unanimously showed ICT as effective training tools for effective
tech-voc courses with their user friendly interface and multimedia
and interactive modules.
The eSkills video clips were most
helpful in teaching competency-based skills focused on automotive,
electronics, computer applications, civil and construction trade
while the Online Speaking Lab fits those aspiring to become
call-center agents, he added.
Syjuco explained that whether a
trainee undergoes full online or blended learning, moderators are
assigned to facilitate students performance.
The Teach, Train, Test software
makes teaching responsive to student’s needs by empowering
moderators to arrange lessons and test depending on one’s learning
abilities and level of skills.
He added, e-Tesda will make
tech-voc courses more accessible considering that the recent
National Career Assessment Examination results revealed that most
seniors in Philippine high school have a high aptitude for tech-voc
careers.
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