Abstract:

The five-month-long "Battle of Marawi City" saga in 2017 had a significant impact on the lives of the people living in Marawi. Physical infrastructure has been destroyed as a result, and residents have been forced to leave their homes and places of employment. Due to the loss of employment and enterprises, the conflict also slowed down social and economic progress. The Marawi people undoubtedly required assistance in order to recover from this predicament and restore their city. Employment was discovered to be one of the most crucial issues.

To solve this issue, the Future Movers Programme (FMP) stepped up. Launched in 2020, this initiative aimed to up-skill and right-skill the internally displaced persons (IDPs), in particular the youth of Marawi City, by creating an inclusive and market-driven vocational educational and training (VET) ecosystem. The program also sought to boost youth employment rates and give them more access to inclusive VET while encouraging program completion and streamlining professional development.

Documenting this project is essential as this can serve as a guide to those who may want to implement the same or related project in the future. Sharing experiences, best practices, and challenges provide others with ideas and tips on how a development project like this should be organized and implemented.

Applying the descriptive single-case study design, this study described the process and relevance of the program by collecting data and descriptive feedback from the archival records, documentation, interview, and focused group discussions with the consortium partners and stakeholders. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data; the authors closely examined the texts to discover the common recurring themes.

Using purposive sampling among the project partners and Technical Vocational Institutions (TVIs), and convenience sampling among IDPs and trainers, a total of twenty-one participants were interviewed. This number accounts for four project partners, six TVIs, eight IDPs, and three trainers. To confirm the data gathered, focused group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among the same participants. For the IDPs, trainers, and TVIs, data were collected in Marawi City, Philippines. The project partners were individually interviewed online via zoom.

Based on the results of this study, the best practices adopted by this project include re-strategizing the project implementation; developing linkages and synergies; good working relationships among consortium partners; open communication and regular meetings; translation of training material and modules to local language; conduct of review prior the assessment; use of multimedia/social media; inclusion of lessons on soft skills; and extending the training lessons to others.

In general, the challenges encountered by the program are the pandemic and natural calamity, administering the assessment/examination, and turn-over of staff. Some challenges were encountered by the TVIs, such as poor internet connection, language barrier, and problems related to the identification of participants.

Keywords:

Technical vocational education training management, best practices, collaboration.