IMPACT OF THE DRAFT NATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY (2019) ON TOURISM STUDIES

The demand for travel and tourism in India is expected to grow by 8.2 per cent between 2016 and 2019 and will place India at the third position in the world.

The World Travel and Tourism Council calculated that tourism generated 9.2% of India's GDP in 2018.

With such growth and contribution to the country's economy, it is the largest employment provider both directly and indirectly.

With the raise in the awareness about the country's tourism conditions and also exciting employment opportunities, tourism studies is finally getting into the limelight and is being preferred by the youngsters to pursue it as a profession.

 

The National Education Policy 2019 envisions as India-centred education system that contributes directly to transforming the nation sustainably into an equitable and vibrant knowledge society, by providing high quality education to all.

With an aim of major changes, let's see how it impacts the tourism studies in the country.

 

1.       The first thing that is highlighted under higher education is the consolidation of current 800 universities and 40,000 colleges into about 15,000 large, well-resourced, vibrant multidisciplinary institutions.

 

This can be great for tourism studies as presently many institutions only emphasis on a particular course and such consolidations can lead to better understanding about different fields which helps a student choose a correct career path.

 

2.      Building strong educational communities are important as it will help in exchange of extensive knowledge and lesser known or enrolled courses like tourism studies or hospitality management can come into limelight.

 

3.      Teaching programmes added along with these multidisciplinary institutions will help the teachers also to develop a strong content especially for dynamic courses like tourism studies.

 

4.      There are students who want to pursue their careers in travel and tourism but due to lack of proper facilities they drop the idea. High quality institutions in disadvantaged geographies would be really helpful.

 

5.      Under High Quality Liberal Education, it is proposed that liberal education will come up with broad multidisciplinary exposure.

 

a.      Creative combinations of disciples of study can bring a lot of awareness about the lesser known disciples which can be beneficial for the students.

 

b.      Master's and doctoral education provide research-based specializations which can be helpful for students who are opting to super specialize in courses like travel and tourism.

 

6.      Under Optimal Learning Environments and Student Support, open and distance learning expansion has been taken into consideration which is beneficial for people who are working but still want to pursue their studies.

 

In this way, any course can be pursued and this can be a good sign for tourism studies.

 

7.      Internalization of education facilitated would not only give good working prospects for the future but will also help the students to pursue their career options at a global level especially for current, upcoming and in trend courses like travel and tourism.

 

8.      Faculty is also equally important when it comes to changing the dynamics in education field.

 

Therefore, under the section Energised, Engaged and Capable faculty, it is mentioned that faculty recruitment will be based academic expertise, teaching capacities and dispositions for public service which when followed will be beneficial as any field, especially new upcoming fields such as tourism studies needs a proper teaching expertise for better and in-depth understanding.

 

9.      Also, Faculty is now empowered to make curriculum choices for their respective courses; pursue research with academic freedom which will have a positive impact on courses like travel and tourism as the faculty will exactly know how and in what manner to give in-depth knowledge about the subject rather than following a rigid, non-beneficial curriculum,

 

10.   All institutions are now free to start and run programmes, decide curricula, student capacity and resource requirements, develop internal systems for governance and people management which is also beneficial because the expertise of the particular field can decide what exactly has to be taught, especially for courses like tourism or hospitality which definitely needs a flexible curriculum and make the students industry ready for future.

 

11.    Professional education should not be done in the isolation of speciality. It is an integral part of the higher education system, which is a very important thing which if followed, can bring out a lot of professionals who will get the understanding of social-human context.

 

12.   Education technology can also bring massive changes in education system.

 

a.      Enhancing educational access to disadvantaged groups will give an equal opportunity to every student for knowledge access.

 

b.      Under New National Educational Technology Forum, an autonomous body will give a platform for free exchange of ideas on the use of technology.

 

 

c.       And also, through the above industry's databases can be accessed to practice and be aware of their particular domain's technological forms which is very beneficial for students of travel and tourism.

 

If these changes are regulated and constantly followed then it can prove to be really beneficial and the higher education system of India can change rapidly and for the good for future generations too.

 

References –

 

UGC. (2019). National Education Policy 2019

 

 

 

SHARMILA FEROZ

MPhil TOURISM