CEDAW/C/PHI/5-6 308. The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), a government institution, has been active in developing gender and development capacity at sub-national level academic and research institutions. It has embarked on a program to engender the national agriculture and resources research and development network throughout the country. 309. Another institution, the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies (UCWS), in collaboration with NCRFW and the Women’s Studies Association of the Philippines, completed a project to establish Gender and Development Resource Centers (GRCs), and build capacity for gender planning and gender policy formulation in the regions to help ensure sustainability of GAD programs and projects in government. At the end of 2003, eight GRCs were established and networks of GAD resource pools consisting of trained academic and professional researchers in gender planning, monitoring and evaluation had been set in place. Vocational and technical education 310. With the improved performance of women in formal education, greater attention is now being focused in expanding the job options of women through technical-vocational training and nonformal education programs that are implemented by government agencies and NGOs. 311. In 1997, the country launched a technology-based education and training program for women through the National Vocational Training and Development Center for Women, also known as the TESDA Women’s Center. Established to improve the economic status of women through technical education and training, the center offers women-friendly facilities, including day care and nursery and space for networking among NGOs. It likewise offers training in nontraditional trades, in addition to a menu of traditional skills areas. It approaches women’s economic empowerment through technical skills training, entrepreneurship training, social skills training, research, advocacy, career guidance and job placement assistance and counseling services, training in traditional trades (food trades, dressmaking and the like) and non-traditional courses, such as welding, general electronics, rural barangay electricity, auto electricity, building construction trades, basic soldering, car air-conditioning, and welding. It started to track employment entrepreneurship efforts of graduates of its courses. As of 1998, around 19,199 graduated from the various courses offered under the program. In 2000, the center graduated 135 women in the 12 trade areas as part of the fifth batch of the pre-employment skills training. The following year, the sixth batch of 191 women underwent training. Some 73 women completed their skills upgrading, while 313 acquired “empowerment skills” that focus on social and entrepreneurial skills. 312. From 1998 to 2001, the center graduated 317 women in various nontraditional trades, mostly in electronics (36 percent) and automotive (29 percent) (See Annex Table B10.5). Of the total graduates, 83 percent completed pre-employment skills trainings, which enable trainees to acquire basic knowledge and skills in their chosen trade area in preparation for gainful employment; 7 percent, skills upgrading courses that deepen the trainees’ knowledge and skills in specific aspects of their chosen trade area; and 10 percent, the 18-month comprehensive trainers’ training for potential or future trainers. Women clients of the center, however, tended to flock to traditional women’s skills areas. From 1999 to 2001, for instance, 479 of the total 88