digitalLEARNING-Mar-2010-[43-44]-Tourism & Hospitality Tailored to Meet Local Needs

Case studY

Tourism & Hospitality Tailored to Meet Local Needs Dr. Harkirat Bains

It is education which contributes and builds human capital as an integral part of a country’s sustainable development.

Education equips the person not only with knowledge but also the necessary skills for productive employment. However, the component of skill development which is more significant and relevant for employment is relatively at a nascent stage in India.

Very few opportunities for skill development are available for the out of school youth and existing workers, especially in the informal sector. Most of the existing skill development programmes are long term in nature. Considering their educational, social and economical background, it was concluded that the poor and less educated persons can not afford long term training programmes due to higher entry qualifications and opportunity cost.

Consequently, a new framework for Skill Development for the informal sector has been evolved by the DGET (Directorate General of Employment and Training – Ministry of Labour and Employment) under the Skill Development Mission to address the above mentioned problems.

The training cell of the School of Tourism, Hospitality Services Management (SOTHSM) of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) at the Regional Centre Bhopal in collaboration with Tourism Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh is an initiative and way forward to develop and design vocational training programmes for human resource development in the tourism sector.

The Preparatory Steps At the very basic level a detailed project report for training 320 students in housekeeping, front desk operations, food and beverage was prepared and submitted to Madhya Pradesh State

Tourism Development Corporation.

Further to that the project was sanctioned under the scheme of Capacity building for service providers.

The project allowed a detailed picture of the expenditure on faculty fees, food, tool kit, uniform, study material and administrative contingency. Nevertheless, the study material was prepared by a group of experts but was essentially approved by the Tourism department.

The local needs of the hotel industry were ascertained and contents were tailored to meet its needs. This was critical to make the training employment oriented.

The Areas Of Training The course was visioned to customise it for a industry specific and job oriented programme. In consultation with the stakeholders the certificate courses were prepared in following three sectors: 1. Certificate in Front Office Operations (CFO) 2. Certificate in Housekeeping Opera-

tions (CHO) Certificate in Food & Beverage Service Operations (CFBO) Six books were developed at the Regional Centre level in self instruction mode by the subject experts drawn from various institutions on Understanding Tourism, Functional communicative skills and personnel grooming, Front office operations Part-1, Front Office operations Part-2 (Practical manual), House keeping operations Part-1, House keeping operations Part-2 (Practical manual ), Food and beverage service operations Part-1, Food and beverage service operations Part-2 (Practical manual) and Destination Madhya Pradesh.

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Special Features Of Project The course was designed specifically to meet the end that includes 60 days of intensive class room sessions including practical training in core areas and 60 days of hotel internship.

Facilities extended to the students include, a low fee structure Rs.1500/- per digital LEARNING

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student, free study material and training kits, lunch and refreshments during class room training, two sets of uniforms (including shoes), stipend Rs.1000/every month during hotel internship.

In the admission process the eligibility criteria is 10+2 in any stream with a minimum 45% marks or 10th with minimum five year experience in hospitality sector and the batch size- 40 trainees/batch /programme.

The Study Centres of the course decided are M P Institute of Hospitality Training (MPIHT),Bhopal, for CFO and Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) Bhopal for CFBO and CHO. Curriculum and Faculty 1.

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The faculty was identified from the Institute of Hotel Management (IHM), MPIHT, Frankfinn Finishing School and managers of reputed hotels.

SOTHSM finalised the time table, assigned classes to faculty and monitored the conducting of the contact sessions.

Preparation of assignments, guiding students for project work.

Log books for hotel training maintained by trainees and verified by manager/trainer.

Evaluation at the end of the classes.

Grading of students on the basis of their performance.

Certification by IGNOU R.C, Bhopal.

80% attendance in classroom and internship was mandatory.

Students Response The first batch started with 120 seats that commenced from August 2009 to January 2010. After the coursework 85 of the enrolled students had completed the course and there were 22 dropouts and the rest were dismissed because of short attendance. The admission of the third batch has already begun and 97 students have registered too.

According to Krishna Prasad Bhushal, Student, Food & Beverage Service, “I have been working with the hotel industry for last 10 years as a steward.

This course helped me in improving my skills in the service department. I have been promoted as captain in the hotel”.

Saurabh Singh Bhadauriya, Student, Food & Beverage Service says, “This course is a multi-dimensional course which has not only given me technical knowledge about the hotel industry, but has also improved my personality and communicative 44

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IGNOU feels satisfied and encouraged by the overwhelming response from the students as well as the stakeholders involved. abilities. It has enhanced my job prospect.” Further Pawan Tiwari, a student enrolled in front office operations opines, “Nominal fee structure and best curriculum for a short term certificate programme has helped me to pursue a career in this sector. This is a programme that has helped us to enter the booming tourism sector.”

The certificate programmes are finely designed for a single stream and gives us great opportunity in this industry. As this has been a booming sector in the service industry, we believe that diploma is a necessity for student who wants a complete knowledge about the hotel, shares Devshree Khare, a Student of the Font Office Operations course Manisha Khale of the Housekeeping Operations course says, “Being a home keeper I believe that this certificate course is as important for professional as well as home keeper, as it gives complete knowledge about maintaining the interiors of any property.”

The industry was too positive about the course. B.M Namdeo, Chief General Manager, MPSTDC says, “All the courses are designed meticulously and conform to highest standards and latest trends.

It will help us in training manpower and making our youth employable.” Following his quote Harminder Singh, Entrepreneur, Amer Group of Hotels says, “All the thirteen trainees who did their internship in my hotel Amer Palace have been employed by me. I look forward to the next batch. Thanks for helping me in my search for quality manpower.’

Project Evaluation There are strength, weakness, opportunity and threat (SWOT) inherent in the project that we have observed and now taking care of. The strengths that we have are adequate financial assistance, freedom of developing study material

according to felt needs and above all the customised and industry specific vocational character of the course.

But the weaknesses are also there.

The first and foremost comes on the the dependence on IHM for the infrastructure is something a lost of vision for us.

We also face an obstacle of coming across to much of the fresh candidates who have no experience or poor knowledge base of the industry. But we cannot deny the opportunities that we have in future. We are looking for as much collaboration with service providers on job offers to 80% of the trainees. We also foresee the threats as in terms of the dropout rate and underemployment.

Besides after receiving the incentives of the course of the free toolkit, uniform, and study material the non-serious candidates stopped attending classes.

We have chalked out some of the suggested corrective measures with reducing incentives and increase admission fee, student should be paying for food served during contact classes, preference should be given to students with adequate experience in the hospitality sector, identifying new institutes as study centres to reduce dependence on IHM and focus on developing one year diploma programme in hotel operations and management.

Vision for the future IGNOU feels satisfied and encouraged by the overwhelming response the cell has received from the students and the stakeholders involved. Seeing to the necessity and demand, IGNOU would also like to include diploma and degree programmes in hospitality sector. We have started with the ground work of identifying experts in the field and hopefully we shall be able to offer these programmes to these students by the end of the year. \\

Dr. Harkirat Bains Reader, School of Tourism, Hospitality Services Management, Regional centre, Indira Gandhi National open university, Bhopal

Dr. Harkirat Bains is a Gold Medalist in Post Graduation in Food and Nutrition from Punjab University followed by her Ph.d in Food and Nutrition from Barkatullah University in 1999. At present she is enrolled in D.Sc (Food & Nutrition) in Barkatullah University since 2008