Boosting tourism business growth through higher vocational education

Programme Priority: P4 Skilled and socially inclusive region

Programme Specific Objective: 4.2. More aligned vocational education and training (VET) programmes in the Central Baltic region

Sub-programme: Central Baltic

Duration: 01.11.2016 - 31.10.2019

Total budget: €571 082

ERDF: €460 684

Project Summary:

The project aligns higher vocational tourism education with the needs of the tourism industry and labour market in Finland, Estonia and Latvia into a new, joint curriculum and study. Through the project, relevant skillsets are identified, aligned and translated into a VET curriculum.

The curriculum will be implemented as an online study programme. The programme will be created in close co-operation with the tourist industry and based on real-life business cases. The project will also produce teaching material and will organise an innovation camp to exchange experiences.

After the end of the project the curriculum and the study programme will be integrated as a module in institutes offering online bachelor’s degrees. The curriculum will be used by higher vocational institutes delivering tourism education in Finland, Estonia and Latvia. To ensure this result, a teacher's guide will be produced and teachers will receive training. By matching the education with the skills needed in the industry the project aims at boosting the growth of tourism businesses and contributes to create new partnerships.

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Lead Partner

Satakunnan ammattikorkeakoulu

Country: FI

www.samk.fi

Partner budget: 247.352 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 185.514 EUR ERDF

Project Partners

Tallinna Tehnikaülikool

Country: EE

www.ttu.ee/kuressaare

Partner budget: 80.059 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 68.050 EUR ERDF

Vidzemes Augstskola

Country: LV

www.va.lv

Partner budget: 143.180 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 121.703 EUR ERDF

Latvijas Universitate

Country: LV

www.lu.lv

Partner budget: 100.491 EUR

Amount of ERDF funding: 85.418 EUR ERDF

Associated Partners

Tartu Ulikool, Pärnu Kolledz

Country: EE

Saimaan ammattikorkeakoulu

Country: FI

Expected results

The project’s main result is a joint curriculum and a study programme of 32 ects in advanced tourism business development. The programme is implemented online in English by distance learning. Courses (4 x 5 ects and 4 x 3 ects) are divided between the partners based on their expertise. Every partner organizes a 5 ects core course and a 3 ects course providing specialized knowledge. The programme is created with the tourism industry and around real-life tourism business cases in order to support the industry development and to achieve stronger integration of learning and local tourism enterprises. Thus, SMEs co-operating with the project partners provide cases to the courses that are jointly solved. The programme is placed at level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework.

The programme is targeted to higher vocational education students (bachelor level) but also tourism sector workers can participate through open university. The content of the curriculum and the study programme is based on the reseach results identifying the joint skillset and competencies. Each PP sends second or third year tourism students and SME's workers to participate in joint courses.

The programme is implemented using joint eLearning platform, and one course of 3 ects is organized as an innovation camp (1 x 5 days) in Kuressaare. In the programme also joint teaching material, teacher's guide and coaching events for CB region tourism lecturers about the curriculum and the programme are produced. Altogether 150 students from CB countries participate to the programme.

The result indicator for the objective is the share of aligned vocational education and training (VET) programmes in the CB region: the project result links directly to that by designing a joint curriculum and implementing a joint study programme (32 ects) in the CB region. The curriculum is spread in Finnish, Estonian and Latvian higher education institutions in the CB region.