CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — The Department of Education (DepEd) in Region 3 is pushing for the establishment of additional assessment centers accredited by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) and operated by senior high schools in Central Luzon (CL).
DepEd OIC-Assistant Regional Director Benjamin D. Paragas on Tuesday cited the need to put up more assessment centers to accommodate the increasing number of students taking up technical vocational livelihood (TVL) courses under the senior high school (SHS) program.
“Our region is home to 23 tech-voc oriented schools, most of which have also piloted the SHS Program. Therefore, the need to put up assessment centers in our TVL schools is one way of ensuring that our SHS graduates will indeed be ready to work and prepared to engage into business,” Paragas said.
As of this month, there are eight public senior high schools in Central Luzon that operate an assessment center accredited by TESDA and 150 DepEd teaching personnel who are TESDA-accredited assessors.
“We are proud to say that in Central Luzon, 1,475 out of 1,477 SHS learners who voluntarily took the national certification assessment passed the said test or a 99 percent passing rate for those who graduated in 2018,” he added.
Based on the DepEd’s Enrollment Quick Count as of June 19 this year, there are 37,432 Grade 11 and 32,337 Grade 12 students who took the TVL track in the region.
This translates to 42.8 percent and 44.9 percent of the total number of Grade 11 and 12 students, respectively for senior high school enrolment for school year 2018-2019.
Paragas said part of the salient features of the K to 12 basic education program is the inclusion of the TVL skills development to prepare SHS graduates to get jobs and start businesses. (Ric Sapnu/PNA)
