TESDA goes ‘green’ with new training center

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has unveiled a new training center that will serve as a venue for honing the youth’s ‘green’ skills.

Built in partnership with the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCI), the TESDA Green Technology Center (GTC) will serve as the green skills hub, which will offer training courses to cater to the needs for renewable and emerging green jobs.

“TESDA is definitely going green as it pursues its technical vocational education and training drive,” TESDA Director General Joel Villanueva said at the launch of the building on March 20.  With Villanueva during the event was FFCCCII President Dr. Alfonso G. Siy.

The construction of the two-storey structure started in March 2014 from a donation of the FFCCCI.  It is housed at the TESDA Complex in Taguig City and has a site area of 2,603 square meters.

It has a six ground floor lecture rooms and two rooms at the second floor as conference area and staff rooms.

The state-of-the-art building will cater to various trainees, clients and stakeholders in different fields and areas of technical vocational education and training like photovoltaic systems, hydroponics, vertical gardening, landscaping, inverter technology and e-trike servicing, among others, to various trainees, clients and stakeholders.

“It will be a campus of ideas and resources geared towards environmental innovation and stewardship,” Villanueva said.

“It will be a game-changer because it will become more than a building. It will create a whole community of changed people around them,” he added.

As a model in green technology, the center will have vertical gardens and landscaping, showcase implementation of waste segregation system, use of natural light and ventilation, use of solar panels / lighting and conservation of water and power.

The GTC will adopt the Training-Research-Extension Service-Entrepreneurship (TREE) concept of TESDA Technology Institutions.  It will conduct training programs primarily for trainers and researches on green technologies, bring research products to communities through extension service, and promote green products entrepreneurship.

Villanueva expressed gratitude to the FFCCI for funding the construction of the center.

“With continued partnership with the private sector, we hope we can build more green centers that are sustainable and will produce graduates who will take on roles as defenders of the earth we live in,” he said.

With over 200 member organizations nationwide, the FFCCCII has been engaged in various civic works and collaboration with the government such as in barrio school donations, relief operations and medical missions.  END