By Mai B. Gevera

Davao City (18 January) -- The Technical Skills and Development Authority (TESDA), declaring that there is no demand for caregivers abroad at this time, yesterday warned the public against enrolling in the vocational course.

It also said 70 percent of all technical and vocational course graduates are unemployed.

TESDA has ordered a moratorium limiting caregiver schools in the number of students they can accept.

Davao City/Davao del Sur Provincial Director Rosanna Urdaneta admitted that TESDA, having no regulatory powers, could only ask local chief executives to close down unaccredited caregiver schools.

“We cannot go after these schools but the moratorium limits the number of schools offering the course and the students taking it,” Urdaneta said.

Any school caught offering the course without any certification from TESDA can be subject for closure by the local government.

Urdaneta urged the public to demand accreditation papers from a caregiver school since it is possible that TESDA could be the last to know about schools that are operating illegally.

“Graduates of these illegal schools will never find jobs abroad because TESDA has already tied up with foreign embassies like Canada. If the embassy sees no TESDA accreditation on your papers, that means you graduated from an illegal school,” she explained.

Of the 9,000 technical and vocational graduates, 4,000 or almost half of the number graduated as caregivers.

TESDA is expecting a significant decline in the number of caregiver graduates this year with the implementation of the moratorium on caregiver schools.

She stressed that with the help of the media, the public will be informed about the low demand of caregivers abroad.

“ We are really discouraging students from enrolling in caregiver courses this time. We advise the public to engage in enterprise, instead,” she said.

The 70 per cent unemployed technical and vocational graduates were encouraged to learn other skills.