The future of Aotearoa New Zealand’s tourism industry is looking brighter with confirmation that Tourism has been accepted as a new NCEA Achievement Standard subject from 2023.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa is delighted that the Ministry of Education has decided to include Tourism as one of the new Achievement Standard subjects available for learners across the New Zealand Curriculum Levels 2 and 3.
“TIA has long advocated that Tourism should be taught in this context to educate learners on the deeper complexities of the tourism industry, and help to attract more pupils to the diverse and inspiring careers that tourism offers,” TIA chief executive Chris Roberts says.
TIA supported the Tourism Teachers Association NZ in their campaign to get Tourism included as an Achievement Standard subject and appreciates the work they have done.
"It has been a perfect triangle of communication and support between secondary tourism teachers, tertiary tourism educators and industry which now enables secondary tourism students in the future to be able to study tourism as a subject and the tourism industry as a whole in a modern, relevant and comprehensive way," Tourism Teachers Association Chairperson Julie McDougall says.
"The TTA-NZ Executive committee are delighted and remain committed to supporting the development of Tourism Achievement Standards.”
Chris says that although tourism has been deeply affected by the pandemic, the industry will recover. Tourism employers around the country will require more of the right people with the right knowledge and skills. TIA considers that including Tourism in the Achievement Standard framework at schools will raise the status of tourism as a subject and properly educate our future workforce.
Tourism offers numerous roles that require critical, innovative, analytical and creative thinking. People often think of tourism employment in terms of frontline teams, but behind these teams are well-trained and qualified people in a range of roles including digital tourism marketers, yield managers, transport managers, human resource personnel, operations managers, general managers and chief executives.
To read TIA’s submission to the NCEA review programme, click here.
