UNIVOTEC joins hands with Canada to initiate hospitality management degree

 By Shehana Dain

University of Vocational Technology (UNIVOTEC) will be collaborating with the Canadian High Commissioner and World University Services of Canada (WUSC) to introduce an industry driven hospitality management degree. The program is scheduled to commence by March 2016.

 Speaking to the Daily FT UNIVOTEC Vice Chancellor DR. T.A  Piyasiri stated that while the initial ground work is done by local authorities consultancy advice will be taken from Canada. The Uniterra program which is under the Canadian aid agency and the WUSC will be looked into when developing the curriculum.

“We will be receiving assistance from Uniterra and their implementation agency WUSC.  Assistance will be in the means of resource persons initially a curriculum developer and then two resource persons for the implementation of the program from the Canadian side.”

 As the local tourism landscape is progressively becoming bullish hoteliers have been facing the dilemma of the increasing gap of HR resources necessary and available. The UNIVOTEC program aims to obtain assistance from local hoteliers in order to bridge the gap. “From the local side we are in contact with the local hotel industry currently with Galle Face Hotel Group as well as the Waters-edge Hotel at the moment. They have been very supportive and given up valuable input at the design stage. We will be trying to collaborate with more hotels,” Piyasiri added.

 He also mentioned that there are a large number of hospitality management diploma holders currently and that a degree program of this nature will assist them to grow in their respective careers.

 “We mainly focus on people who are in the industry and diploma holders who are in the industry, not A/L batches. In certain traits like the tourism sector, even if a graduate from a respectable University with a hospitality management degree applies for a hotel manger’s post it’s highly unlikely to receive that post, because one has to know the essence of that trade.”

 “There can be two approaches one is getting a degree and then going to the industry and rising from the bottom and rise in the career ladder. The other group enter the industry doing lower level jobs and with experience and acquiring qualifications will grow in their respective careers in fast track mode,” Piyasiri noted.

 In that context he highlighted that the local education setting is rapidly changing while conventional routes are being overlapped by students who have gained industry experience as well as academic qualifications simultaneously.

 He also highlighted that the new regime has realised that skill development is the key to the development of the country in their manifestos.

“However much graduates we produce the impact for the economic development is low when compared with the work and services and the impact that can be given by producing more number of middle level and certificate level people because they are the real workforce of the country because of that the Government give a very high priority for skill development. I’m confident that from the 6% that has been allocated to the educational sector bulk of the money will come to the technical and vocational training sector.