Tourism stakeholders should aim at producing tourism graduates who will become entrepreneurs, rather than producing more and more tourism workers. That’s what the Acting Deputy Director-General of the Department of Basic Education heard from the Members of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism this week. “The schooling system has been producing workers, so we must ensure that the system delivers entrepreneurs for the tourism industry as well,” said committee chairperson, Mr Donald Gumede.
He said the Department of Basic Education would not achieve that goal if it was isolated from relevant and strategic stakeholders such as the Department of Tourism. “Strengthen your collaboration with all the role-players to ensure that you produce tourism specialists who can contribute meaningfully towards speeding up economic growth and creating more jobs,” he said.
The Department of Basic Education briefed the Portfolio Committee on Tourism on its plans for tourism as a career. The Acting Deputy Director-General, Mr Edward Mosuwe, told Members of the Committee that tourism subjects were introduced at schools in 2006, for grades 10 to 12.
“Given the demands of globalisation, the Department of Basic Education tourism syllabus includes languages such as French and German,” Mr Mosuwe said. When members of the committee questioned this how inclusion of foreign languages affected or was affected by the government’s policy on languages, Mr Mosuwe pointed out that foreign languages formed part of the 29 tourism subjects that had been approved for the Tourism National Curriculum.
Members of the committee appealed to the Department of Basic Education to ensure that it promotes the non-official South African languages. Urban students should tour the rural heartland so that they too were exposed to the rich history of South Africa, they said.
Source: Parliament of South Africa
