Estimating the influence of obsolete curricula on the effective tourism education implementation

Abstract

This research, in terms of introductory comments, while effectively implementing tourism education programs, is intended to reveal the importance of practical training in tourism curricula. The purpose of this investigation, as such, is to see how within the context of the Lebanese pedagogical approach, tourism education can be most effectively taught through focusing on vocational and academic curricula in both public and private schooling systems. The main objective of this research is to find out ‘how effective these curricula are at preparing students in being engaged in their careers if they choose the tourism industry as an employer’. Preliminary research in this venture has shown that vocational schools provide effective instructions of the needed market skill sets, which are lacking in some of the academic programs relying on obsolete educational approaches. while the tourism industry is constantly modernizing and restructuring itself at a very fast pace since the beginning of 2020 due to the Pandemic outbreak. This has caused major changes in the industry as it faced multiple crises.

Whether the tourism education programs at the public vocational schools is outdated as well will require further investigations. However, the literature review does confirm that private schools are more effective in teaching students about phenomena based on more recent curricula, as they need to be updated. In terms of research methodology, the study was conducted using interpretive philosophies, reliable hypothetico-inductive methods based on interviews as a mean to collecting data. In terms of study results, the research findings point out that indeed the outdated Lebanese curricula affect the effective implementation of tourism education. However, this will absolutely require a modernizing upgrade of the Lebanese educational programs and tourism education curricula, resulting in a major to contribution towards uplifting the Lebanese tourism industry.