• Secretary Isidro Lapeña, Deputy-Director General Rosanna Urdaneta and officials of TESDA
• Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Philippines and Palau, Laure Beaufils;
• Our partners from the government, workers and employers organizations, both at the national and regional levels particularly in the Visayas;
• Ladies and gentlemen, magandang umaga sa inyong lahat (good morning to all of you)!

Allow me to express the ILO’s appreciation for this on-going partnership with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) toward continuously enhancing the delivery of technical-vocational education and training in the country. We share the common goal of enhancing the relevance of skills delivery to labour market needs based on an improved labour market information (LMI) system, particularly in terms of collection and analysis of occupational data on the demand for skilled workforce.

Today’s National Workshop on LMI requirements for demand-driven planning of TVET is very relevant as the Philippines is transitioning to a post-pandemic environment that highlights the importance of well-informed labour market policies. It supports the country’s National Employment Recovery Strategy or NERS which emphasizes skills development as key to effective recovery both of jobs and businesses. Skills development is also a priority under the Philippine Decent Work Country Programme 2020-24. The Global Call to Action adopted during this year’s International Labour Conference cites skills development as integral to a human-centred recovery from the pandemic.

Bearing these frameworks in mind, the ILO through the Skills for Prosperity Project (SfP-Philippines) funded by the United Kingdom government, has been working with key government agencies, employers’ organizations, trade unions and other stakeholders to ensure that equity, quality, relevance and cost-effectiveness are enhanced in the Philippine skills development and TVET system.

Prior to this national workshop, the ILO and TESDA convened stakeholders in the three Visayas regions for a series of capacity-building exercises on analysis of the current occupational and qualification structure of the employed labour force and of other variables. These workshops aimed to contribute a more informed demand-driven planning of TVET as an integral part of the ongoing transition toward area-based demand-driven TVET planning and delivery. These workshops, which convened more than 300 participants not just from the Visayas but also from other regions, set the base for piloting planned improvements of the TVET system in Regions 6, 7 and 8.

We have gathered in this workshop policy makers and administrators from the national and regional offices of TESDA, CHED, PSA, DOLE, NEDA, DILG, officers of the public employment service offices (PESOs), and social partner organizations with the goal of highlighting the potentials of labour market information to improve the alignment of TVET and tertiary education to labour market fundamentals.
Today’s discussion is also expected to focus on recommendations from our international experts on enhancing the LMI to enable it to effectively support the labour market demand-based TVET and related tertiary education planning in the Philippines.

Colleagues, let me emphasize that workshops such as these we have organized jointly with TESDA will only be successful if we are all providing our valuable inputs to the discussions. Our highly experienced team of international and national experts are here with us to discuss the areas of alignment of LMI to the needs of TVET delivery planning in the Philippines but they are here also to listen to your views. I therefore encourage everyone to actively participate during the workshop and to also commit to the next steps in pilot implementation.

On this note, I wish everyone a very fruitful and productive workshop discussions and look forward to the resulting recommendations on next steps in pilot implementation.

Thank you!