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Duterte signs law mandating free access to technical-vocational education


President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a law mandating free access to technical-vocational education in order to address job-skills mismatch and unemployment in the country.

Duterte signed Republic Act 11230 or the Tulong-Trabaho Act on February 22.

The law orders the creation of the Tulong-Trabaho Fund that will grant qualified recipients access to Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs through the full payment of the selected programs' training fees and additional  financial assistance such as transportation allowance and laboratory fees.

The fund will be administered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), which was once led by Senator Joel Villanueva, the author of the measure.

Those qualified to avail of assistance include: (a) any person at least 15 years old, who is not in school, not in training and unemployed (b) employed workers who intend to develop and expand their current skills and training.

Excluded from the law’s coverage are workers in companies or industries currently trained by their employers.

The law establishes the Philippine Labor Force Competencies Competitiveness Program that assesses the prevailing requirement of industries, with the help of the Department of Labor and Employment, which generates studies such as Labor Market Intelligence Reports.

"With the signing of Tulong-Trabaho Law, we look forward to TESDA producing more tech-voc graduates and become skilled workers that our labor market needs,” Villanueva said in a statement.

TESDA has 60 days to craft and promulgate the implementing rules and regulations of the law which will take effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation. — MDM, GMA News

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