Scholarships slated for transport groups

 To ease PUJ modernization effects 

By Susan  C. Aro

BAGUIO CITY -- The Land Transportation and Franchising and Regulatory Board -Cordillera Region urged jeepney drivers, family members and other stakeholders affected by the Public Utility Vehicle   Modernization Program (PUVMP) to avail of government’s technical-vocational (tech-voc) scholarship program.
    The Technical Education Skills and Development Authority and Dept. of Transportation signed Dec. 11, 2019 the memorandum of agreement on the “Tsuper Iskolar” for those who will be displaced under the PUVMP.
    Qualified to apply are displaced persons affected by the PUVMP, stakeholders who opt to voluntarily exit from the transport industry, stakeholders who opt to continue in the transport industry, new stakeholders in the transport industry, and family members/dependents of the affected stakeholders up to the third degree of consanguinity or affinity.
    Engineer Elmer Mendoza, the LTFRB focal person on Tsuper Iskolar , said  there are nine courses under the program for the city and Benguet which are all under National Certificate II,  a TESDA-issued competency certificate.
    The tech-voc courses with 25 slots allotted for Baguio City are bread and pastry production, slaughtering operations, and security services except for cookery with 50 slots.
    But the 25 slots for driving course have already been filled up, said Mendoza.
    For Benguet particularly in La Trinidad, 25 slots were allotted each for heavy equipment operations for bulldozer, heavy equipment operations for hydraulic excavator, heavy equipment operations for wheel loader, and shielded metal arc welding.
    LTFRB   is in charge of evaluating applicants based prior to endorsing them to TESDA, Mendoza said.
Interested applicants need to present as a requirement the copy of the PUV franchise.
    Qualified recipients to the program will be entitled to free skills training and free skills assessment with training support fund equivalent to P350 to cover food and transportation allowance. They will also be provided with free entrepreneurship training. –PIA Cordillera