The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) has received land properties in Negros Occidental for the establishment of Regional Training and Innovation Centers (RTICs) in the Negros Island Region (NIR).

TESDA Director General Jose Francisco Benitez led the signing of the deeds of donation during the Technical-Vocational Education and Training (TVET)-Industry Partnerships and Milestone Ceremony held over the weekend at Nature’s Village Resort here.

The Symbiosis Management and Development Corp., represented by Antonio Montinola, donated a 10,000 square-meter lot located in Barangay Matab-ang, Talisay City.

The Beneterra Consolidated Corp., led by representative Raoul Benedicto, donated an area of about 25,000 square meters in Victorias City.

“This will go a long way in ensuring that the ecosystem of technical-vocational training in NIR will not only be healthy, will not only be sustainable, but will lead, in fact, to the innovations and the transformations that the country as a whole needs,” Benitez said during the event.

The Regional TVET Innovation Center facilities will serve as training, research, innovation and startup hub for enrolled learners, demonstration and partner facility for other TESDA technology institutions and technical-vocational institutions (TVIs), and demonstration and research and development (R & D) facility for industry.

The RTICs will also offer higher-level TVET programs, including Philippine Qualifications Framework levels III to V, and joint skills development programs with industry, focusing on 21st century skills and new, advanced and emerging technologies.

The centers will be capacitated to implement and provide technology demonstration services, R&D services, and incubation and business start-up services to its learners, industry partners, and public and private TVIs within the region.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing support to TESDA in modernizing the Philippine TVET system, which is “designed to create innovation centers across the Philippines that will create the kind of training and research that we need for innovative and emerging skills,” Benitez said.

“Because NIR is a new region, NIR is now applying to get funding, additional funding from ADB because it wasn’t included in the original list. ADB knows the intention to create two regional training and innovation centers, one in Talisay and one in Victorias,” he added. (PNA)