As students struggle to sleep in cars and on other people’s sofas for the coming academic year, the good news is that there is plenty of scope in the area of Tourism Education.
The level and range of choices out there has never been better, with many of the variant courses responding to the needs of the hotel & catering sector, with courses in culinary skills, hospitality, adventure tourism, event management, heritage and culture, amongst many others.
In the third-level educational system in Ireland, you can broadly define the offering in tourism education into two categories: higher education and further education.The higher education route is the one that many Leaving Cert students focus on.These are the degree courses and bachelor degree courses.The further education courses tend to be those that are chosen by students who are possible unsure what they want to do and/or are looking to use such courses to gain access to higher education.
The courses of further education are run by the ETB (Education and Training Board) – an amalgamized organisation made up of what used to be FÁS and the VECs. The higher education courses are run by the traditional universities (such as UCC), the technological universities (such as Ireland’s newest university the ATU or Atlantic Technological University) and the remaining Institutes of Technology (most of which have now taken the step up to university status).
An example of the range of courses can be seen with Munster Technological University (formerly CIT and Tralee IT), with campuses in Cork and Kerry. Here, amongst a choice of over half a dozen tourism education courses, students can pursue a Level 6 Higher Certificate in Culinary Studies, a Level 7 Bachelor Culinary Arts Course or a Level 8 Honours Bachelor degree course in Tourism Management.
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Read the full September / October 2022 Magazine Publication.
