Educating Professionals on Islands in GastroTourism

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The mainreasons for developing a curriculum for gastronomical tourism is the lack of good image and lack of work force and challenges in the sector. The tourism season is short and the staff in work need further educating, they are quite often not educated for a job within tourism and gastronomy, but they have microbusinesses or SME:s and therefore no possibilities to take on full time studies. This curriculum will help these adults get professional training in a flexibel way. The curriculum will be implemented in both adult and youth studies, and it can be both mandatory or voluntary. The curriculum is very flexibel and useful. For adults the curriculum can be arranged during evenings and weekends if needed. EPIG is a project that will improve the level of knowledge among students and working professionals in the field of gastronomy and tourism. The project partner schools are from 2 islands, Saaremaa and Åland. The schools are vocational and have education in hotel, restaurant, gastronomy and tourism. The particpating vocational schools have teachers with high expertise within gastronomy and tourism. The result will be a curriculum, 10 ECTS, with different subjects that will be used in vocational schools. During the project this curriculum will be developed by teachers and expterts from the fields of gastronomy and tourism. The curriculum will be tested on studentgroups, evaluated and then tested again. Since life on an island is different from life on mainlands, these island characteristica, will be emphasised. Also the understanding of the other countries culture and educational systems, will be taken into consideration. Planning meetings, teacher education, steering committee meetings, project managment meetings and boot camps will be arranged on both islands. Experts in the project are employd by others and their salary is not in our budget. The joint curriculum will be implemented in the partner vocational schools education system.

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