Drive to upgrade technicians skills on

WITH technology seen as a booster to economic growth, a technology company has partnered with vocational schools in the country for a campaign to help upgrade the skills of industrial technicians.

Intel Philippines and the Technical Vocational Schools and Association of the Philippines (Tevsaphil) Inc. have joined hands to implement the education campaign called “Intel Easy Steps.”

Digital literacy and innovation in many countries worldwide have been linked to the rate of economic growth, said Yvonne Garcia Flores, Intel Philippines Corporate affairs manager about one of the reasons for the campaign.

“A 10 percent increase in technology penetration adds 1.3 percent in GDP (gross domestic product) in high income countries while in low to middle income countries, it adds 1.2 percent in GDP. This only shows the importance of a digitally literate population” Flores said.

Based on their data, 374 million people in the world still who have no access to technology or are “digitally stateless.” Intel has committed $100 million in investments to improve education in 100 countries including the Philippines every year.

For this project, they will identify four members as their main partners in implementation at the region level, said Col. Alejandro Escano, Tevsaphil Inc. chairman.

“We’ll have one for South Luzon, one for North Luzon, one for Visayas and one for Mindanao. For Visayas we have picked CITE (Center for Industrial Technology and Enterprise) for as our partner,” said Escano.

In the country, there are 4,406 Technical Vocational Schools (TVET), 90.0 percent are private institutions while the rest or only 401 are public institutions.

There are 258 TVETs in Central Visayas alone.

PROGRAMS
They will incorporate the program into their regular training modules, said Bonifacio N. Mercado Jr., Cite Industry Linkage manager.

“We offer programs for industrial technicians that cater to the manufacturing industry here and we think the Intel Easy Steps program will help them upgrade their skills, be more digitally capable and be more innovative,” Mercado said.

Aside from the industrial engineers, Mercado said there are also programs for ICT, construction and hotel and accommodation which can all benefit from the program.

According to Flores, as of date, the program has already reached 54,034 grassroots learners and 1,182 trainers.

“We aim to reach more especially in the Philippines which has registered robust economic growth and showed a lot of promise of growing more,” Flores said.