The Core Curriculum Beyond Tourism - Article Example

Text 3 The core curriculum beyond tourism In higher education and in tourism in particular, the content of the academic knowledge is widely disputed. Although such a debate is not limited to tourism, due to its relative newness, its problems differ in nature from other fields because such discussions in other disciplines have a wider focus on the curricular processes and outcomes in addition to the core body of knowledge. Lawson (1996) and Fletcher (1996) are two prominent academics who have written on the broader context of such debates in higher education. The latter argues against any form of curriculum created at the national or university level, implemented by the government or an external agency. The argument is based on the grounds that the soul of the entire system would be taken away if done so. Woollard (1996) carries out the argument for a standard curriculum to deal with a crisis of accountability witnessed in higher education. This would enable the public to compare curriculum across disciplines, institutions or degrees. Without such standard curricular content, the public would be denied the basic right to do so. He further engages in a discussion of how the three key issues that is the open-ended nature of higher education, threats for academic autonomy and bureaucracy, presented against such core curriculum can be addressed. Using France and Germany as successful examples, he shows that their national curriculum upholds academic autonomy in not being a straight jacket but specifying discipline specific qualifications. Also, bureaucracy is minimized by emphasizing outcomes over processes and by clearly specifying them. However, Fletcher (1996) argues that the purpose of higher education is to train the minds to think effectively, which would enable students to learn better. ­Squires (1987) observes that specifying what needs to be included and developing a curricula for a vocational disciple from such specifications could be theoretically possible. However, translating market needs and job requirement directly into curricula is not always possible in practice (Squires, 1987). He goes on to sum up that incessant dissatisfaction, constant struggle and skillful maneuver for positions, and negotiation characterize vocational training, and that these will never be resolved due to the multiple demands on the curricula that are inherently present. Moreover, such curricula are also subject to criticism as being extremely narrow or broad, short-sighted or old fashioned, and rigid or unrealistic. The desire and need for a core curriculum has been a focal point of argument in vocational and professional disciplines too. To illustrate, in the UK, the Association of Business Schools is has been developing a core curriculum at the national level in order to help check standards (Baty, 1997). In 1977, the first major study in the area of hospitality management was carried out (Johnson, 1977) and is under regular review (Messenger, 1992). At the outset, it might appear that standard curricular standards are relatively uncomplicated or easy in professional disciplines such as hotel management, medicine or nursing, and tourism as the content flows from the needs of the industry. Text 4 The large number of tourism degrees need to be understood in the light of higher education policy. The UK government’s emphasis on improving participation in higher education is understandable, while the emphasis everywhere is on knowledge society (Delanty, 2001) and the need to invest in human capital to enable economic growth in a competitive and globalized world (Browh &Lauder, 2006 cited in Walmsley, 2009). In addition to widely acknowledged positive link between educated workforce and economic force, Cooper, Shepherd and Westlake (1994) argue that tourism itself is given increasing economic importance, which in turn has added the emphasis on tourism education. In this context, it is difficult to argue convincingly that the rising importance of tourism education and economic goals are unconnected. It is quite simply one facet of a wider political discourse on the relationship between higher education and society. At the same time, it is just one aspect of the complex political discourse on how higher education and society are related. However, at the outset at least, tourism educators appear to have accepted such a functionalist purpose of tourism education at the tertiary level. For instance, Cooper and Shepherd’s (1997) work on the industry and tourism education relationship shows acceptance of the widespread view that higher education should prepare for employment. Text 5 A lack of trust characterizes the historically complex link between tourism industry and tourism education. However, both the sectors have become increasingly aware of the mutually beneficial nature of developing a supportive relationship between them and the significant need to narrow the existing gap between the two. In contrast to the traditional disciplines such as history or geography, there is an overarching need in tourism education to meet the needs of the stakeholders in both industry and academic sectors (Cooper and Shepherd, 1997). Text 6 Tourism education is relatively new compared to tourism training although the latter has been estimated as only half a century old according to liberal estimates. In spite of the rapid growth of tourism as an academic subject and expansion in its provision, tourism education is still young and the higher education level courses lack planning and control. It is this immaturity that has given rise to arguments about the quality of tourism courses, delivery of such courses and teaching standards in addition to doubts about several other issues (Cooper and Shepherd, 1997). Firstly, because of the relative newness of tourism education to the academic arena, it is still striving to establish and prove itself as a worthy academic discipline. The field also lacks characteristics such as the history of certain other older disciplines and it also is plagued by lack of clarity and is weak in its concepts (Cooper and Westlake, 1989). Therefore, the issues faced in this field are over things that have been already read in other fields. For instance, discussions over definitions of fundamental concepts and terms are still ongoing unlike in other fields. In consequence, tourism education is characterized by an incoherent and fragmented framework and lacks clarity in its direction. In contrast to other fields, in tourism education, the fundamental concepts that integrate a discipline are still immature and its preoccupation with developing the foundation serves only to distract the academics from getting an overall perspective. Numerous problems result from this lack of a conception of the big picture. For instance, the subject continues to lack in credibility and is still perceived as a ‘soft’ subject amongst both academics and others due to pre-conceptions and ignorance of the subject. Secondly, the relative newness of tourism education means that educational as well as curriculum issues need to be addressed. For several years, the tourism has exemplified or enriched other subjects and disciplines. As a result, the subject content has focused more on non-tourism related applications resulting in an impairment of the tourism curriculum in itself. However, tourism is striving to set up a history with antecedents for itself to gain academic credibility, it stands disadvantaged. Tourism education lacks in basic foundations and the research tools that are essential to the advancement of the subject area are still undeveloped. Thirdly, in tourism education, the body of knowledge continues to change and grow with growing research in that area. Publications from 1980’s are early records of the body of knowledge produced by the research on tourism in the 1970’s. The 1981 issue Annals of Tourism Research acted as a special stimulus as it was exclusively for tourism education. A curriculum wheel suggested by Jafari and Ritchie (1981) demonstrates the aspects of a center for tourism studies and the courses that could be part of it. In the following years, the British Tourism Society developed a body of knowledge for the subject area (Table 2) based on a survey of the academics and industry in Britain (Airey and Nightingale, 1981). Both these approaches have been combined as a tourism disciplines matrix by the WTO (Table 3). In a decade, Jafari (1990), grouped the body of knowledge under four separate ‘platforms’: • the advocacy platform, which is an uncritical approach; • the cautionary platform that focuses on tourism’s impact on host societies; • the adaptancy platform that nominates low impact forms of tourism; and • the knowledge-based platform that advocates for a more research-based scientific approach. While these categories are not supposed to be evolutionary or mutually exclusive of each other, a significant trend towards the knowledge-based platform is seen in the 1990’s. Every one of the approaches mentioned above should be made a part of the tourism curricula and due to the changing nature of the body of knowledge, the curricula should also be made flexible to facilitate adoption of new knowledge. Fourthly, tourism educators raise important questions as a result of the immaturity of the subject area. Questions could be about classroom approach to the subject, the role of training, the way to combine content and skills development and how to balance general tourism education with education on specialized aspects of the subject such as marketing and development. They also question whether the tourism industry really knows what to require of tourism subject. In case of launching multi-disciplinary programs, the educators ask where to house it and question whether institutions would be flexible enough to provide room for such program. Another most significant need of the hour is to resolve the debates on the merits of tourism training and education (Airey, 1985). Yet another question is about where have recruitment policies been adapted in order to consider graduates’ experience and at the same time a structured and well integrated plan for career development is offered (EIESP, 1991). Unless the tourism industry gives serious consideration to these issues, all its graduates will continue to be lost to other sectors which offer and invest in career and employee development, and education and experience is rewarded appropriately in the form of pay that commensurate with education and experience. Read More