The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) on Tuesday inked a memorandum of agreement to enhance the skills and employability of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

DMW Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac and TESDA Director-General Jose Francisco Benitez signed the agreement which will provide skills and livelihood training programs to the OFWs.

“Skills are not only a means to gain employment. But skills are the highest form of OFW protection,” Cacdac said as quoted in a news release.

“Once an OFW steps up to the level of a globally integrated skilled, enhanced worker, that worker will become more productive, more happy, more able to contribute to his family, to his community and to his nation,” he added.

During the signing at the TESDA office in Taguig City, TESDA and DMW initially released 249 scholarship training certificates for selected qualified beneficiaries.

The DMW said the agreement would help augment the program to reintegrate OFWs and their families through scholarship grants for skills and livelihood training.

The partnership would also equip OFWs with expertise that they can use in acquiring decent jobs and to establish and eventually manage their own businesses should they decide to return in the country for good.

Under the agreement, DMW shall advocate for training programs focused on upskilling, re-skilling, and cross-skilling., including Competency Assessment and Certification; identify, pre-evaluate, and recommend to TESDA, eligible OFWs and their family members; endorse to TESDA returning OFWs qualified to become trainers and/or assessors; identify, assess, and recommend technical vocational courses and training centers abroad that have the potential for conducting skills training programs; and provide TESDA with labor market information (LMI).

TESDA, on the other hand, shall conduct orientation on TESDA programs and services available for OFWs and their families; provide skills training, assessment, and certification to OFWs and their families endorsed by DMW based on the skills priorities; conduct language and culture training to the outbound OFWs, implement the Overseas Scholarship Program for OFWs while in the host country; conduct competency assessment for OFWs in the host country; and conduct capability building interventions for trainers and assessors endorsed by DMW.

Meanwhile, the agreement will not only benefit the OFWs, but their dependents as well.

“As mandated by the President himself, alagaan ang mga pamilya, ang kapakanan ng mga pamilya ng mga OFWs (we will take care of the family, the welfare of the family of the OFWs),” Cacdac said. (PNA)