School children to gain more tourism interest, career opportunities

─ as THAG pushes its ‘adopt a school’ agenda

School-aged children could benefit from increased interest in tourism and enhanced career opportunities, as the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) plans to work closely with them to bridge the skills gap in the sector.

THAG’s President, Dee George told the Department of Public Information (DPI) on Wednesday, that the goal will be achieved through the SWIFT programme and the new ‘adopt a school’ initiative.

“Last year we recognised that we needed to find the source to encourage those who may not be aware of what tourism has to offer, to actually start going within our high schools in particular, and hence came the project, adopt a school idea,”George stated.

The plan is for members to adopt a local school and collaborate with it to engage students on the topic of tourism and explore ways they could get involved.

Meanwhile, through the ‘SWIFT’ programme, THAG is looking to partner with the Ministry of Education to further drive the agenda.

The aim is to help students pursuing the subject at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) levels to gain practical experience.

“What we have learnt is that there is tourism at CAPE and there is a particular subject matter within Social Studies of CSEC. We realise that if we assist the students with that topic [and] the actual CAPE preparation, we can actually persuade students to do tourism,” George noted.

She believes that by immersing students in the subject of tourism, they can be inspired to pursue it further at the University of Guyana.

Additionally, there is also a plan to collaborate with the university to foster greater interest.

“We want to expose students to the actual industry and what it entails behind closed doors, and that’s what the internship programme within the high schools is going to be,” she emphasised.