Tags
curriculum, Developing Career Skills, Diploma in Centre Management, Hotel School, Quality, Sector Skills Development Programme, Sri Lanka Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission, TVEC
but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done
December 2016 saw the consolidation of the new work we had initiated from the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission. The English and Soft Skills programme was going well, and this month saw the publication of Developing Career Skills, the text for the second level courses, both the dedicated NVQ Level 2 course and the supplementary module on all NVQ Level 4 courses. The energetic Australian Volunteer Beatrice Johnson had also produced a guide, which we published in the same month.
The enthusiastic staff in our Curriculum Division had, with solid support from the Sector Skills Councils, developed new three month Level 3 curricula in a range of subjects, and we managed to have a number of these finalized and approved by the Commission at meetings in December. We had been charged with producing a Job Outlook manual, but we decided instead to produce Handbooks setting out the new curricula while incorporating the career paths available in each sector. Handbooks for the Construction and the Hospitality sectors were accordingly finalized in December.
This last subject area had not benefited from the Sector Skills Council since that had taken a long time to get off the ground. But we had great support from Chandra Mohotti , who had vast experience of hotels and who was therefore asked to chair the Council. Previously the Sector Skills Development Programme, which had been in charge of the Councils before I was compelled to take over, had failed to include any hoteliers. But the World University Service of Canada, which was helping in the sector, put me and the Minister in touch with Mr Mohotti, and he kindly chaired the Committee I set up to expedite action.
In addition we began working together with the Hotel School, the Sri Lanka Institute of Hospitality and Tourism Management, headed now by someone who had been in school with me. He was incredibly busy however since he also had to look after the BMICH, but he put me in touch with excellent colleagues, and we were able to build up a relationship that it seemed had gone sour a couple of years back. Though the TVEC had collaborated with SLIHTM on curricula then, problems of hierarchy had it seemed caused problems.
I set out as clearly as I could the formal position, which was that TVEC was the authority with regard to curricula and assessment. But TVEC also had to acknowledge that its expertise in the fields in which it operated was limited, and therefore it should rely on professional bodies such as SLIHTM – or for instance the National Child Protection Authority when it came to care of children. We needed therefore basically to work in terms of the competencies the Hotel School prescribed, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel on our own, or to work with individuals we chose. Continue reading
