How to get assessed and certified by TESDA

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) makes sure that the people it has trained or retooled do not just graduate, but also pass the skills assessment for a National Certificate (NC) or Certificate of Competency (COC), a certification of a mastery of specific skills.

TESDA provides skills training through technical vocational programs for out-of school youths, displaced OFW workers, unemployed and underemployed Filipinos. It seeks to upgrade skills to make our Filipino workforce marketable in companies here and abroad.

TESDA’s Free Assessment Service (FAST) is our program for assessing skills and competence of both TESDA trainees and students of other TESDA-accredited schools or those with skills and wants to be assesed by TESDA. We issue certification that renders credibility to a person wanting to be in-demand in the work place.

Qualified assessors do the assessment, they are holders of at least a National Certificate IIII level (an assessor should have an NC level higher than what he/she is assessing) have at least 2 years of industry work experience and have undergone the competency assessors’ course.

In the Commercial Cooking course for instance, only a qualified chef-assessor can perform skills assessment that includes oral and written examination, and actual demonstration.

“As a chef-assessor, we become Michelangelo, and our trainees, our Mona Lisa” said Chef Bert Francisco. “Assessing performance in the kitchen does not only involve the food itself as the outcome of cooking; as an assessor it is important to me that I could see the student’s expertise through his body language, how he holds a knife, or how he prepares mayonnaise or leafy salad… it’s not just all about the taste.”

Francisco says that the skills assessment is based on competency and starts with collecting of evidence and making judgments on whether the trained is competent and job-ready.

“Those who do not pass a certain aspect of the assessment due to lack of competence may may review his skills performance and take another assessment until he passes,’’ Francisco explains.

TESDA has assessment instrumnts and assessors for skills such as hair cutting and hair dressing services, dress pattern making, welding, consumer electronics servicing, horticulture services,
fish capturing, pest management, landscape installation and maintenance, wellness massage services, tour guiding services, security services, footwear making, butchering services and many others. To date, there are 215 TESDA training regulations which have assessment packages.