Like the country’s road networks, government agencies often overlap functions which causes duplicity or even multiplicity of programs.
The most recent intertwining in the bureaucracy could result from the move of the Department of Education (DepEd) to includd skills training in its Alternative Learning System (ALS) education to empower the youth who plan to work while studying.
DepEd launched on Tuesday the Alternative Learning System-Education and Skills Training (ALS-EST) Program Handbook for Implementers with the aim of intensifying and expanding the regular ALS program, which is considered “the centerpiece of basic education under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.” While this is a noble intention by the education department, it also runs smack with the functions relating to another agency which is the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
Under the expanded ALS, DepEd added a skills training component to the ALS education in addition to the basic subjects such as history, math, and science. Students enrolled in the program can now be trained in food and housekeeping, electronics and welding, wellness, dressmaking, agriculture and carpentry. To do this, DepEd would allocate supplementary funds for the training facilities and for those who will facilitate the training.
Not only does this replicate the functions already existing in the mandate of TESDA, which has been successful in elevating the technical vocational education pathway as an alternative to formal higher education, it can also result to additional budgetary requirements for the government.
The premises being cited in the expanded ALS are very much similar and repetitious of TESDA’s policies and programs.
DepEd said it aims to bring these out of school children and youth through the ALS-EST, which is a complementary program to the mainstream ALS. The program also aims to “holistically prepare learners for various exits, such as higher education, middle-level skills development, entrepreneurship, and employment by integrating a skills training component with the basic education component”.
A look at TESDA will tell us that the agency was established through the enactment of Republic Act No. 7796 otherwise known as the “Technical Education and Skills Development Act of 1994”, to encourage the full participation of and mobilize the industry, labor, local government units and technical-vocational institutions in the skills development of the country’s human resources.
There must be a way for Deped to coordinate with TESDA in the same concept as ladderized education to seamlessly bridge ALS with tech-voc education under TESDA. That will be a more efficient way as you don’t need additional resources and manpower training to get the intentions of the expanded ALS progressing forward.
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