RDC-7 asks DepEd to revive

ALS-EST, put enhancements

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol. Dec 20 (PIA)—Job generation, productivity: these two things pushed the Governor Erico Aristotle Aumentado-led Regional Development Council 7 (RDC-7) to attain when it requested the Department of Education (DepED) to revive the Education and Skills Training (EST) Program which was incorporated in the Alternative Learning System (ALS).

The program, as carried in the department’s primary learning vehicle for the out-of-school youth ‘s non-formal education, has been discontinued during the pandemic and has not been resurrected since then.

The DepEd’s ALS-EST program, not only provides youth and adults chances to develop basic literacy skills and catch up in getting complete basic education, it also systematic integrates skills training components to the standard academic interventions in the ALS, making the ALS completers ready for employment, argues RDC sectoral representative Profetiza Lim.

As chair of the RDC’s Social Development Committee (SDC), Lim said that this move fits into one of the ten social sector priority strategies for 2023-2025: strengthening technical-vocational education and training for ALS learners.

Aside from the basic literacy and accreditation and equivalency for these OSY and adults to catch up with the formal education, the DepED introduced the ALS-EST in 2017, to produce ALS completers who also have the technical skills that will land them into available jobs.

Here, the DepEd puts in a systematic integration of skills training components to the standard ALS academic interventions.

Piloted in 98 schools nationwide then, the ALS-EST completers from one of the pilot schools in Danao City Cebu, produced functional and productive individuals, she told RDC members.

Although still not perfect yet, the ALS-EST, without available relevant facilities, equipment and qualified trainers, could only offer training for limited skills under its program.

An ad hoc SDC committee tasked to come up with the recommendations on the discontinued training program noted the need to ensure that the skills training component in the ALS comes at par with the standards of the country’s premier technical vocational training authority.

While the DepED schools offering the tech-voc training use the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) training regulations, it is the DepED which developed their own programs, that not all of the schools get the mandatory TESDA compliance audits.

There is no mechanism to ensure the alignment of skills training component with the TESDA standards, the SDC noted.

To this, the RDC under Aumentado, resolved to request the DepEd to revive the ALS-EST program with enhancements in its implementation.

The RDC therefore, proposed a stronger collaboration between DepED and TESDA in the delivery of the skills training component of ALS-EST through a joint memorandum circular, defining the stakeholder’s roles in its implementation.

On the sidelines of the council meeting, Aumentado, who chairs the Provincial Tech-Voc Skills Development Council said the RDC finds the revival of the ALS-EST as consistent with the goals of raising the employability of every Boholano at age, to increase local employment and impact on the economy in general. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

PROPPING UP THE ECONOMY. RDC-7 led by Bohol Gov Erico Aristotle Aumentado has steered the council to ask the DepED to fine tune its ALS-EST program and re-offer it again to ensure employability of its non-formal-education completers. Tech-voc-employable adult completers bid well for an economy that is propped by industries here. (PIABohol)