Some passers of the Philippines’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority’s Assessment and Certification at a ceremony in Dubai on Tuesday.

Five hundred fifty-three of 598 Filipinos in Dubai and the Northern Emirates (DNE) who had opted for the assessment of their respective technical/vocational skills by authorized Manila officials during the five-day UAE National Day celebrations have been certified and are now qualified to seek better jobs and employment.

The onsite Assessment and Certification (AC) for Caregiving, Electrical Installation & Maintenance (EIM), Massage Therapy, Photography, and Trainer’s Methodology 1 were conducted at the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Al Qusais, Dubai (POLODXB) and at the Power Technical Training Centre (PTTC) in Al Satwa, Dubai from Nov. 29 to Dec. 3.

The assessors and certifiers were a team from the Philippines’s Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda)-Competency Assessment Division-Certification Office headed by acting chief Marites Ramos, former Overseas Workers Welfare Administration officer at the Philippine Overseas Labour Office in Abu Dhabi.

Ramos was happy for the “very good” AC results considering that of the 435 applicants for the Caregiving National Certification (NC) II, 399 were certified (91.72 per cent); Electrical Installation & Maintenance NC—which included a woman who wanted to know how far her limitations are—88 of 88 (100.00 per cent); Massage Therapy NC II, 23 of 27 (85.19 per cent); Photography NC II, 42 of 43 (97.67 per cent); and Trainer’s Methology 1 Certificate of Competency (COC) II, one of five (20.00 per cent) for a total of 553 certified of 598 (92.47 per cent).

The team also spotted on work ethics such as commitment to work and teamwork.

NC/COC is issued when a candidate has demonstrated competencies in all units of globally-aligned standardized competency that comprise a qualification.

Being certified Trainer’s Methodology passers mean they are qualified to carry out the planning/facilitation of training/learning sessions, supervision of work-based learning, competency assessment, the maintenance of training facilities, and the utilization of electronic medium for facilitating trainings.

The DNE rating was the highest so far compared to those posted by other overseas Filipinos, according to Ramos who recently led the AC teams in HongKong, Singapore and Saudi Arabia.

Two of the successful passers were Elizabeth Decano, 57, from Bicol Region and Arnold Doblon, 31, from Eastern Samar Province who had enrolled at the PTTC, the only Tesda-certified private training and assessment centre in the UAE.

Decano is the nanny for the past 17 years of two mid-adolescents. She took up the Caregiving course upon the encouragement of her Canadian citizen employers.

“They wanted me to have something to fall back on should I decide to leave them. But I would not leave them. They are my family.” Bereft-ness engulfs the single mother, even if she had earned her Tesda certification because she had lost her one and only daughter-nurse, her grandchild and a nephew in 2018, due to an alleged generator-related domestic accident in their hometown in Sorsogon Province.

Decano’s AC consisted of oral exams on her know-how on specific cases such as dealing with wards in emergency situations as well as caring for Alzheimer’s patients.

Machine operator in the Philippines and a carpenter in the UAE for the past one-and-a half years, Doblon, a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology graduate from the Eastern Samar State University admitted to being nervous during the seven-hour three-category (written/practical exams/interview).

Doblon studied EIM because similar to other Filipinos—professionals/skilled/unskilled/domestics—he wanted to improve not only his lot but also his loved ones’.

Ramos said there has been an increasing demand by OFs for Tesda’s AC recent years. She added that in Saudi Arabia, the demand for the AC in fibre optics is growing.

“It is the thrust of the government to encourage our countrymen to engage in technical-vocational courses, have them acquire the knowledge and skills towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Under the leadership of Tesda Secretary Isidro Lapena, we are also driving at the enhancement of the knowledge and skills in the agricultural sector.” Labour Attache Felicitas Bay said: “The onsite (AC) programme is a government intervention programme of the Philippines to upgrade the skills of overseas Filipinos (OFs).