Vocational Tourism Education — An Answer to Contemporary Education System
Professional & Vocational education is providing students technical hands that prepare them to get employed in a chosen field preparing students initially in colleges with the similarity of the actual working condition in the market. Professional/ Vocational education is more like internship of certain years in the college to groove the student’s skills in a certain direction to improve their understanding ability about the field. Where contemporary education system focuses on the enlargement of the student’s capability of understanding difficult matters & chiefly improve their knowledge of the subject without giving proper understanding of the implementation of the subject knowledge Professional/Vocational education basis is to provide focused technical education centring the usability of the education. Providing Professional/Vocational education is the demand of the society in India where unemployment or misplaced employment is in abundance with this contemporary education system. Students after completing their education from different universities feel cheated when they come out from the universities not to get employment at all from this education system. Either they choose to be unemployed or choose employment that don’t match their education at all. Only a thin line of students are properly placed with this education system but large numbers of students come out cheated from this contemporary education system. First a student complete three years of graduation from the university in contemporary subjects like Humanities/ Commerce/Science consisting different subjects like Maths, Biology, History, Geography, Sanskrit, English, Hindi etc. and comes out unemployed after three years because their technical skills are not up to the demand of the market condition at all. Their usual competition starts again & students start preparing for the different competitive education. Thousands & thousands of students starts their studies again for few numbers of competitive seats available again on an average they prepare for three years of education again to get a selection only to a few numbers of students only. Others in search of higher education opt for Master degrees and feel cheated again after the completion of masters of not getting employment again their skills are not up to the demand of the market requirements. This contemporary education system is more like a vicious cycle of engagement rather providing jobs to students its sole motives lies in the churning & producing cream to the few selected ones only but very large numbers of students are left purposively to enhance under-payee employees because they have no other way out after these long years of education. On the other hand Travel & Tourism studies of one/two years as a vocational course provide ample opportunities to the students to opt from among the different options. Education of tourism is more like providing initial understanding of the nature of business in the college itself to groom the students to the suitability of the markets demands.
Travel & Tourism Education as Vocational Studies
Tourism industry is growing rapidly all around the world to be the number one service industry in terms of revenue generation in comparison to the investments. Again its going to be the number one industry in terms of number of employment generation from the point of invested money for the business. Tourism is the phenomenon of the 21st century globalization where the world behaves like one small village. In India the tourism business is still its initial phase of development where opportunities are immense for the people engaged in the business of tourism. Culturally India is so rich that it can be the top most destinations in the world for the foreign tourist travelling all around the world. Naturally India’s beauty is unmatched to any other part of the world comprising all the different features of the world in a single nation. Potential of India as a destination for tourism business comes right from the history as well where people are still in the form of their pristine beauty, consisting the old traditions of their ancestors & embracing the modernity in the same time. India is more like an amalgamation of past & present that should be handed to the future generations to come. Presenting the options for the foreign tourism opportunities India has its Domestic tourism potential in great abundance. Comprising the forms of tourism like Religious Tourism is the most important form of tourism prevalent in India. People from all around the country visit places of religious importance in numbers. Current business developments in the country present ample opportunities for the MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conferences & Exhibitions) for the tourism practitioners. Other important factor suiting the development of the tourism business in India from all around the world is its geographical situation consisting the sea all to the three sides & economic conditions. Tourists travelling around the world while crossing their native country tend to stopover to the places of important in between their actual destination for tourism. India in this category get numbers of tourists around the world tourists travelling from Europe & America to South-East countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand etc visits India in numbers in between.
Opportunities in the Tourism Business for Students
Tourism & Travelling business consist two main factors where the business comes. First is Transportation where travel professionals get the bookings of the most convenient transportation mode for the tourists while Road, Rail & Aviation. Other part of the tourism business comes from the booking of Accommodation facilities for the tourists away from their place of residence. Apart from these two important factors there are many other services that a travel professional provide to the tourists while they are visiting to the destination. New forms of tourism activities are coming in numbers like Village Tourism, Root Tourism, Cultural Tourism, Heritage Tourism, Farm Tourism, Space Tourism, Country Tourism, Metro Tourism, Pub Tourism, Beach Tourism, Adventure Tourism, Lake Tourism, Eco Tourism, Indigenous Tourism, Tribal Tourism, Mountain Tourism, Business Tourism etc. they are so many basically telling an important factor about the tourism business that this business can be related to the place where the professional belongs. They can get the jobs & start the business in the very place of their convenience itself. Finding jobs in tourism industry are as easy as it don’t require migration from their residence to find jobs & many different possibilities of jobs make it more lucrative in comparison to other service/product industry.
Travel & Tourism Studies for the Students
The study in the field of Travel & Tourism is so interesting & can easily be acquired in the time span of One to Three years by the different universities after Intermediate or +2 completions. These courses are in the form of Part Time or Full Time Diplomas. Other courses are run at the graduation level in the universities where its a full time course of Three years. Another form of tourism study can be acquired after the completion of the Graduation from any stream. This course is of two years and provides Master Degree in the tourism. At the same time few university run One Year PG Diploma in the field of tourism. Apart from these courses offered at the universities other Hospitality courses are offered at the Intermediate or +2 levels as well in the schools to acquire the knowledge of the hotel industry. Other courses of the Hospitality are offered by the government institutions or the hotels itself after schools & some time after graduations.
Conclusion
As discussed above throughout the paper contemporary education system of Indian universities produce more unemployment in comparison to employments. It is more like a vicious cycle of continuous engagement rather giving outcome after a certain time. Students in numbers spend al 7–8 years of education in the contemporary system after completing their schooling of nearly 12–13 years. This continuous effort of students leads them nowhere if a student is of average calibre in comparison to others. He ends up being an employee of any organization that has no future prospect for the student’s likings & calibre. Most of the students coming out from this education system are placed in mismatched organization where their grooming for the suitability of the organization starts again in between 2–3 years they find somehow work for the organizations goals prospect just for the sake of employments. Others those numbers are being high again are forced to do nothing at all in comparison to time spent in the contemporary educations. On the other hand students placed in vocational tourism education study to nearly 1–3 years comparatively to contemporary educations get suitable jobs for their likings in different organizations. Their major grooming for the tourism industry is provided in the tourism curriculums well & they get minor prospective grooming in the organizations that they choose. Another factor that makes vocational tourism education more lucrative for the students are higher possibility of partial & full time entrepreneurship options. Most numbers of tourism professionals tends to start their partial businesses in between 3–4 years after their joining in the tourism industry. In next face of their career they become full time entrepreneurs to do their own business & provide opportunities to the new talents coming from the vocational tourism education system. In comparison to the contemporary education system vocational tourism education system has an edge of time frame where in contemporary education system students require 7–8 years just to get a job & again of a minimum one year training just to get a regular employment but in vocational tourism education students transform from a mere employee to an entrepreneur in the same time frame. So to say vocational tourism education system is more like providing desired skills in the students from their career points of view in context to other contemporary educations. Few improvements can be made in this vocational tourism education system by adding foreign languages in the curriculums chiefly to educate students for tourism industry’s suitability & at the same time adding more practical training in the curriculum for the betterment of the students.
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