Tanzania: Kenya Utali Teams Up With Tanzania

Arusha — The Tanzania's VETA Hotel and Tourism Training Institute (VHTTI) and Kenya's Utalii College (KUC) have agreed to start a training competent together for hotel and tourism professionals.

Utali Principal Dr. Kenneth Ombongi said the deal will take the tourism and hospitality industry to a higher level in the region and the rest of Africa.

"Under this agreement, the two training institutes will be exchanging notes on how best to improve human resources working in the sector," Ombongi said.

He said East Africa needs people who are well-trained in different aspects, and hospitality is one of the key industries in tourism.

Utalii is East Africa's leading hospitality and tourism training institution. The College is also an affiliate member of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

VHTTI's Principal, Flora Hakika speaking on the sidelines of the signing the MoU, said the decision was anchored by East African Community's regional integration process, aiming at widening and deepening cooperation among the Partner States in political and social fields for mutual benefits.

"This was the driving force behind the need for collaboration and the fact that way back in 2008, VETA and KUC held discussions on collaboration whereby KUC agreed to train VHTTI teaching staff," Hakika said.

She said they will benefit much from Utali long experience.

VHTTI is East Africa's third biggest public institution for hospitality and tourism training. It is based in Arusha, operating under the Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA), Tanzania's autonomous agency in charge of coordinating, regulating, financing, providing and promoting vocational education and training.

The decision to form partnership was prompted by a recent research that revealed there was an acute shortage of qualified personnel in the Tanzania's hospitality and tourism industries.

The Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community article 115:2 states that: The EAC Partner States shall cooperate in the promotion of standardization and harmonization of professional standards and hotel classifications, among other objectives.

Meanwhile, Tanzania's Minister for Education and Vocational training, Dr. Shukuru Kawambwa said students should be empowered with entrepreneurship skills, so they become job creators and not job seekers.

"As government, we need to produce competitive graduates who can ably establish their own enterprises soon after colleges," the Minister said.

He was speaking at the first graduation of 36 diploma students who pursued hotel management studies at the VHTTI.

Entrepreneurship skills are to be incorporated in vocational training college curriculums if they are to produce students able to engage in self-employment and become job creators rather than seekers.

He said students should be trained entrepreneurship with focus being placed more on practical hands on training than in class theories. "Unemployment has been and still a very serious problem, and a key way to address it, is introducing in our vocational training curriculums, entrepreneurship programmes that will equip the trainees with basic business knowhow," Dr. Kawambwa said.

The minister also encouraged students pursuing studies in the hotel and hospitality industry to seek jobs outside the country, citing the fact that Tanzania and the rest of the EAC has been working on implementing the EAC Common Market Protocol, which came into effect in July 2010 allowing for cross border labour migration.

"That's why there are Kenyans, Ugandans, and Rwandans who work in Tanzania. So, even our people can be allowed to go and work in those countries," he told the graduates.