Despite a moratorium imposed on tertiary schools to refrain them from offering hotel and restaurant management (HRM) courses, a national group of deans and faculties said this would not stop the demand for such programs.
“As far as the hospitality and tourism industry is concerned, I don’t believe in the notions that it might end too soon, even though it is one of those programs that were given the moratorium by CHED [Commission on Higher Education],” Association of Administrators in Hospitality, Hotel and Restaurant Management Educational Institutions (AAHRMEI) founding president Dr. Gloria Baken Wong-Siy told the BusinessMirror in an interview. “This is one of the industries that have grown continuously since the time I was involved in the 1980s. I have seen how it grew. And now, as far as the population of students is concerned, it is even higher than nursing.”
Last year, CHED has ordered a moratorium on the opening of new programs in HRM, as well as nursing, business administration, teacher education, and information technology education effective school year 2011-2012.
As per the CHED Memorandum Order 32, the moratorium covers undergraduate and graduate programs in the courses of HRM (Bachelor of Science, Master of Science and Doctor of Hotel and Restaurant Management, and Hospitality Management), Nursing (Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts/Master and Doctor of Philosophy), Business Administration (Bachelor of Science, Master and Doctor in Business), and Teacher Education (Bachelor of Elementary and Secondary Education, Master of Arts, Doctor and Doctor of Philosophy) being offered by all the public and local universities and colleges, as well as private higher-education institutions, including those which were granted autonomous status by the commission.
Given the surge in the number of academic institutions offering these programs, CHED has imposed the moratorium for the reason that if they were allowed to continue uncontrolled, this would end up in the “deterioration of the quality of graduates of these five higher-education programs.”
The commission also cited the disappointing results of the Evaluation of Graduate Education Programs and the licensure examinations for teachers and nurses as to why they decided a stop in offering such programs. This, they said, confirms not only the worsening quality of graduates in these programs, but the programs themselves.
The issue of “mismatch” experienced at present by the significant number of HRM, business administration and information technology graduates who landed on jobs not related to their courses is also a big concern for CHED.
This problem, however, was contradicted by Dr. Wong-Siy, saying that only a “certain percentage” of HRM graduates ended up with another job like in the call centers “because of the attractive pay that they are giving.”
“But eventually, they will get out from that area because they still want to work in the hotel,” she stressed. “It’s just temporary for the reason that they are not immediately hired after graduation, so they have to look for another job like in the call center, which offers them more employment opportunities. This also holds true for graduates of other courses, who eventually are employed in hotels or restaurants as well.”
Also, in contrast of the Department of Labor and Employment’s support of the moratorium to mitigate oversupply of graduates in certain disciplines that in turn could not meet the demand in the labor market, the AAHRMEI founding president pointed out that there are plenty of job placements available, especially abroad.
“There may be a low demand for HRM graduates locally as we could count only by the fingers those good hotels, restaurants and the likes looking after them. But what is good about the program is that they are very much in demand not only here, but abroad as well. In fact, many are asking us at Trinity to send our students to cruise lines, hotels, restaurants and casinos, among others, overseas. And I’m very glad that somehow our students are doing well out there,” enthused Dr. Wong-Siy, who is also the HRM dean of Trinity University of Asia in Quezon City.
HRM programs, she noted, offer good opportunities for students since they are not only being prepared for hotel or restaurant work.
“They can be versatile in any area. If they have developed well their competencies for bakeries, they could be bakers or come up with their bakeshops. They could also be consultants not only for hotels and restaurants, but even in tourism agencies. They can be managers, not just a steward. They can be entrepreneurs as well,” she said.
“Our graduates could make good. In fact, because of the program also of Tesda [Technical Education and Skills Development Authority] where competencies are really focused on, each of the schools is serious about developing the students’ competencies. When we say of culinary, for instance, we are competing with other nations. In fact, many of our chefs are being hired in cruise lines abroad. Just like Cristeta Pasia Comerford, the first-ever Filipino-American White House executive chef.
“These are indications that because of our own culture and good traits, such as being hospitable, hardworking, patient, persevere and have a lot of guts, Filipinos can truly make it even in other countries. So as far as hospitality and tourism industry is concerned, I believe the market is still good,” she said.
Training for a fee
AT the height of the issue on nursing students being required by some hospitals to pay a fee for their training, AARHMEI also sounded the alarm as there are reports that HRM trainees are also being charged by some hotels and other similar facilities.
“Just recently, we [the AAHRMEI dean-members] were discussing what’s happening with the hotels. We have received reports that even small hotels are asking for a fee for the training of the students, ranging from P1,500 to P7,000 per program,” bared Dr. Wong-Siy. “This is quite alarming because hotels, restaurants and other industry players should be ready to accept students who are coming in for their OJT [on-the-job training]. And if they find them good, they could absorb them. But what is happening is like money-making.”
She likewise reiterated that this ‘training-for-fee” scheme contradicts the CHED policy—the Students Internship Program in the Philippines—which says that hotels or restaurants should not charge student-trainees because in lieu of cooperative education, it is their duty to provide training pro bono.
“In fact, they’re supposed to pay 70 percent [of the rate of salaried employees] to the students. The schools are not expecting for that. It’s okay if they will not pay for that. But they should accommodate the students for training and maybe give them a duty meal, either lunch or dinner,” she stressed.
The concerns on HRM students being required to pay for training fees has been happening more than three years ago, according to school authorities. With this, AAHRMEI could not deny the fact that some of the HRM students at present are intending to go to Singapore, the United States, Australia and other markets abroad for their practicum as a requirement for their graduation.
“It’s a pity on the part of the students. So something should be done. Why let our students spend more just for their training? That’s why, in behalf of the schools who came to me to complain about it, I’m intending to go to the CHED to voice out to them the appeal of our deans nationwide,” she pointed out. “It is written in their policy that they’re not supposed to charge and, yet, there is no cooperation from the industry. I will ask them to interfere. Being the agency in charge of all the schools nationwide, it’s just proper that they should look into this and do what could possibly be done. Maybe they could talk with the industry in a nice way to make them understand the need for the practicum [by the students] and not [charge them] for a fee.”
Keeping up the ante
MARKING a decade of dedicated service, AAHRMEI celebrates on February 28 its 10th anniversary themed “Hospitality Education Across Borders: An Opportunity for Advancement,” strengthening its vow to raise the bar on HRM and other related education in the country.
Looking back, a group of 22 deans and faculty members converged to establish what is now composed of more than 600-strong members—individual and institutional combined from both the academic and industry. It was Sylvia Ama, then the director for Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management of De La Salle University-College of St. Benilde, who conceived the importance of an organization to look into the concerns of HRM and other related courses. Through her colleague, Dr. Wong-Siy, who was asked to join the trip in Singapore to evaluate the performance of a third training partner, the formation of such association came into a reality.
Impressed with the effect of the training abroad, CHED-National Capital Region director Dr. Amelia Biglete, who was also included in the visit, instructed the latter to come up with a group to assist the commission to monitor the implementation of the International Practicum Training Program guidelines. Together with Ama, Dr. Wong-Siy worked on the constitution and by-laws with the help of Dr. Adela Ruiz. They called for an organizational meeting on February 24, 2001. Inspired by the group’s ideals, 22 administrators eventually supported them to create the organization of deans, heads and coordinators of HRM, tourism, food technology, nutrition, home economics and other related courses to advance and address the issues affecting them.
On February 27, 2001, Dr. Biglete called for a meeting to present the report on the Singapore trip and to address the concerns of various schools. During the gathering, Dr. Wong-Siy, the elected president, requested that the AAHRMEI officers be sworn into office at the end of the activity. Since then, the organization has labored and lived on to its goal to support CHED, Tesda and other agencies to complement other associations to continue quality and excellence in the hospitality education.
“We are a voluntary professional organization that is nonprofit. What is good about AAHRMEI is that it serves as a venue for benchmarking. When you belong to one school and I belong to another school, we are sincere to share practices with each other. So there is a unified feeling that if you’re an AAHRMEI member, you are actually covered by the benefits just like this—the sharing of knowledge and skills. If we know good opportunities here in Manila, we also do communicate to those in other areas. That is the practice of AAHRMEI,” boasted Dr. Wong-Siy.
Asked about her contributions as the founding president of the organization, she said unity as one. “Modesty aside, I was able to unite the deans. Before, it was like a competition. I used to tell them that we are not competing. In fact, we should be one in coming up with what is really quality and excellence, so that our graduates will be accepted by the industry,” she noted.
To professionalize the discipline, her leadership has standardized the HRM practice by conducting seminars and trainings for deans and faculties of different schools nationwide. These platforms of learning have been extended also to their members from the industry, such as waiters and other practitioners, with invited speakers from abroad to keep up with the global trend.
Somehow the group contributed also to standardizing the learning of the students. “Through the trainings, our continuous communication with the industry and the rest of the deans nationwide, somehow we have improved the program of the HRM. That’s the good side of sharing. For me, we have to help each other. It should be a tripartite partnership involving the industry, the school and the students,” she stressed.
To earn recognition for the hospitality and tourism education in the Philippines beyond its shores, AAHRMEI has been instrumental also in establishing linkages abroad. Through the policies and guidelines it formed for the Students Internship Abroad Program (SIAP), many schools nationwide have benefited from this.
“Not only HRM students have been given the chance to go to Singapore for training, but also those from different programs such as business and engineering,” she pointed out. “This would be impossible without me requiring a company in Singapore, who in 1996 approached me to send our students in Singapore, to acquire first an accreditation from CHED, which the former took seriously as an investment.”
Internally, the AAHRMEI president wishes for the organization to have ample funds to build its own state-of-the-art building that could double as a hotel and culinary facility and, at the same time, house the other related associations like the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Educators of the Philippines and the Nutritionist and Diabetics Association of the Philippines, among others, who share with them the same motives and objectives “to serve their members” while “professionalizing and standardizing” their services so they could produce the best graduates that could serve not only the Philippines but the other countries as well.
Bullish on the hospitality and tourism education in the country, she said: “It has a bright future. In fact many [hotel facilities] are coming in. We have the best people involved and, of course, the best graduates that we could be proud of.”
