| BRAZIL
The mission of the Brazil Program is: (1) to improve education in Brazilian public schools and invest in capacity building by training teachers; (2) to develop tourism-related instructional materials including books, games, instructor manuals and activities; and (3) to introduce young people to the Travel & Tourism Industry and its professional opportunities during that time in their lives when they are making career choices.
The Brazil Program went through a major transformation in 2005 when it became a partner with the government of Brazil and its Ministry of Tourism in a project to expand tourism education into 100 new schools in 15 states, reaching 200,000 more students aged 14 to 18, and training 1,000 more teachers. At present the Brazil Program operates in 106 cities, serving over 72,000 students in 225 public schools. Teacher training has just been completed on the project. A second phase of the federally-sponsored expansion will bring the program to the remaining states.
The project is part of a broad strategy by the Ministry of Tourism that recognizes that the development of tourist destinations has not always resulted in benefits for the local population, especially young people, many of whom are discouraged by the career choices open to them and by the conditions in their communities.
One part of the solution to this problem is to encourage the development of visitor attractions that value what local areas and their cultures can offer visitors. The other is to encourage greater local professionalism by reaching young people while they are still in school.
The tourism education expansion project includes the production of nine student textbooks and nine instructor manuals, including 20,000 sets for teachers and students of the PASSPORT TO THE WORLD course developed by the GTTP, which has been translated into Portuguese. The project also relies on teaching kits distributed on CDs. To learn more about this project, click here.
Topics for students covered by the various texts include the structure of the Tourism & Travel industry, good citizenship, ethics, technology, customer service, culture and tourism, finance and administration for tourism. Teacher training lasts 30 hours.
The Brazil Program collaborates with the University of Sao Paulo (USP), and with state and municipal schools through the Secretary of Education, with the support of local government Tourism Departments. USP faculty oversee the academic content and provide teacher training.
Some of the interest that tourism education has generating in students can be seen in the http://www.gttp.org/html/case_studies.html produced by students. These studies have involved as many as 1,500 students, and they have not been shy about either the need to improve local services or their pride in their regions.
Mariana Aldrigui
Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas
FFLCH/University of Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo, Brazil
[email protected]
Partners
Brazil’s Minister of Tourism, Marta Suplicy, (right) with the Brazilian edition of PASSPORT TO THE WORLD along with Professor Regina Arajau de Almeida and Flavio Bittelman, members of the Brazil TTP board of directors. |
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