Jeepney drivers invited for livelihood training

The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system will cover a lot of routes that are being serviced by passenger jeepneys. (CDN PHOTO / JUNJIE MENDOZA)

DRIVERS of jeepneys plying routes covered by the Cebu Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project and their families can avail of livelihood trainings to be provided by the Cebu City government for free.

Rafael Yap, Cebu BRT project implementing office chief, said they decided to open the trainings to drivers after only 34 out of the 550 available slots have been taken by operators and their family members.

The trainings will be administered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and was previously intended only for operators and family members of passenger jeepneys affected by the BRT project.

Registration for the drivers and/or their family members will start today. It will be open for a month, Yap said.

The initial registration started last August 22 and lasted until September 23 and yielded only a few interested operators.

Those qualified for the program will get a P340 training allowance per day which will be given at the end of their training.

Yap said availing of this scholarship program won’t necessarily mean that the operators and drivers can’t anymore be included in other possible mitigation measures that can be launched in relation to the BRT project.

There are 17 different courses under the program. Each course has a specific limit of participants. As soon as this limit is reached, the training can start already.