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Tourism academy aims for autonomy |13 February 2016

 

A team of consultants from The Guy Morel Institute, a faculty of the University of Seychelles, are working with the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) to convert it from a budget dependent to a budget independent institution.

The plan to make the STA an autonomous institution was first announced in 2013.

In a presentation earlier this week at the STA at La Misère, management, lecturers and other staff members were enlightened on a series of very important aspects that will comprise the transformation process of the tourism training institution. The principal secretary for tourism Anne Lafortune attended the presentation.

Explaining the autonomy process, lead consultant Luther Philemon told everyone present that it is the state of being self-governing and self-rule.

“You will no longer have to be dependent on the Ministry of Tourism and Culture for a budget but you will depend on yourself – making your own decisions, raising your own revenues, managing the running of your institution and recruiting your own employees,” Mr Philemon pointed out.

Among the aspects that were presented were legal autonomy, marketing and branding, supervision, administrative autonomy, governance, leadership, management, innovation, best practices, human resource capacity, changed management, financial performance…

With regard to the legal autonomy aspect of the process, work has already started on the Act which will establish the status of the STA. Once this is done, a legal framework to establish the operations of the institution as an autonomous organisation will be drafted.

The principal of the STA, Flavien Joubert, said the time has come for the STA to move to the next level.

“It is time for the institution to move forward and stop being fully dependent on government budget,” Mr Joubert pointed out.

Mr Joubert noted that parents should all take ownership of their children’s learning and students should be responsible and accountable for their learning while lecturers should deliver more and be accountable for their students’ success and remunerated accordingly.

Mr Joubert said it will take over a year to undertake the transformation process.

He added that being independent will prompt the institution to be more innovative and explore different opportunities for development and will prevent  lecturers from being complacent but push them to be more enthusiastic and to  motivate their students.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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