WESTERN BUREAU:
THE UNIVERSITY of Technology (UTech) has been turning away approximately 80 per cent of qualified applicants seeking entry into the field of Tourism Management because it does not have enough space and teachers for the related programmes.
Pointing to the high demand for training in tourism and hospitality-related studies, Dr. Rae Davis, UTech president, said the university could not accommodate any hike in the influx of new recruits at this time, as it already has the required quota for its School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
In outlining the situation which UTech's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management faces, Dr. Davis disclosed, "For every five or so qualified applicants, we can only take one."
For this academic year (2002/2003), UTech was only able to accept 151 new recruits in the area of tourism and hospitality
management.
Meanwhile, responding to queries from The Gleaner, Hector Wheeler, Corporate Communications Manager with UTech, pointed out that the university could not expand its intake of students in hospitality at this time, since this would mean increasing its teaching staff and other resources.
He says limited physical space is one of the major factors that would need to be addressed if UTech is to allow for an upward swing in its quota of tourism studies.
In the meantime, the university is forging ahead in expanding and diversifying the offerings available to students already enrolled in its undergraduate programmes and are putting structures in place to initiate postgraduate studies at that
institution.
To this end the university yesterday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the University of Delaware in the United States.
At the signing ceremony at Ritz Carlton Hotel in St. James, representatives of the two tertiary institutions said the document creates the framework for a 'win-win' situation for both staff and students.
The joint venture will provide for collaboration between the two tertiary institutions in the areas of research, teaching, student exchange and teacher exchange programmes.
According to Dr. Frederick Demicco, Professor in the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management at the University of Delaware, the Memorandum of Understanding will foster a development of specialisation at the undergraduate level in Hospitality Information Management, as well as postgraduate studies in hospitality information management. UD already offers undergraduate and postgraduate studies in those areas, but it will be a new path down which UTech will have to travel.
The Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Information Management is slated to get off the ground by the start of the next academic year, but applicants will have to wait for another two years for the Master's programme to begin. Fourteen students from Delaware University will be in the island for five weeks, doing a "study abroad programme", as a component of their undergraduate studies in tourism.
UTech's School of Hospitality and Tourism Management has a population of some 500 students. The unit offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Food Service Management, which will this November see its first graduate in that four-year programme.
It also has a joint programme with the University of the West Indies which offers the Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel and Tourism Management. The first batch of students under that programme graduated last November.
