Mac-Dic Royal Hospitality Academy to commence operations next January
The first private hospitality academy in the country to train skilled professionals and young persons interested in pursuing a career in the hospitality and tourism industry is to commence operations in January next year.
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The Mac-Dic Royal Hospitality Academy in Koforidua would offer intensive theoretical and practical training to students in front office, housekeeping as well as food and beverage operations.
To prepare its products adequately for the job market, the students would also be attached to the three-star Mac-Dic Royal Plaza Hotel in Koforidua to acquire the relevant knowledge and skills required by the hospitality industry.
Facilitators
As part of preparations towards the full operations of the academy, the Mac-Dic Royal Plaza Hotel, in collaboration with Council for Technical and Vocational Training Education (COTVET), organised a one-day capacity building workshop for eight facilitators of the academy last Friday.
The facilitators, who are already working in the hospitality industry, were trained in how to use the competency-based training curriculum of COTVET to teach students in the academy.
The training formed part of processes towards the accreditation of the Mac-Dic Royal Hospitality Academy.
The competency-based training programmes comprised competency standards set by industry to ensure that students were well equipped with adequate practical knowledge and skills required for the job market.
Trained professionals
Addressing the participants, the Chief Executive Officer of the Mac-Dic Royal Plaza Hotel, Barima Kofi Adjei Twinin, said his experiences operating in the hospitality industry for over two-and-a-half decades showed that although there were many facilities in the industry, there was a general lack of trained human resources to render quality services.
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“My experiences show that guests would want to have value for money paid in our hotels but what the sector lacks is trained professionals to deliver quality services to meet expectations of our guests,” he said.
To address the challenge, the former President of the Ghana Hotels Association said he decided to set a hospitality academy to offer practical training to those already working in the sector as well as to the youth to pursue professional careers in the hospitality and tourism industry.
“Currently, Ghana is known as a hub of international conferences and this requires that players in the hotel business employed the right calibre of competent workforce to offer professional quality services to give value for money,” he added.
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Time for professionals
For his part, the Director of Competency-based Training of COTVET, Mr Sampson D. Tetey, commended Barima Adjei Twinin for his vision to establish a hospitality academy, which he described as the first of its kind to be accredited in Ghana.
He hinted that by the close of 2018, all technical and vocational training institutions were to adopt the competency-based training approach which would bring together experts in industries to make inputs into the development of curricula of such institutions.
“This will ensure that the knowledge and skills given to students will be more relevant to the requirements of industries, including the hospitality and tourism industry,” he said.
He expressed worry that the standards of services offered by some hotels did not match the requirements of the industry, blaming the situation on the gap between the industry and education and training.
“Today, we have a situation where training institutions decide for the industry, failing to consult or allowing industry to be part of their curricula development.”