Cooking the way into a promising career

Madaba – Aspiring young chefs and hotel students around Jordan are showing off their culinary skills by cooking meals for their parents as part of an initiative to raise awareness about the hotel and tourism vocational training program. A series of luncheons, which began in February and continue this month, are taking place at the 11 hotel and tourism vocational training centers across Jordan, with the last session concluding on March 18. By the end of this week, around 1,500 parents will have been served meals prepared by the 700 students currently training at the 11 centers in Jordan. This “Cooking for Parents” initiative is being implemented by the Vocational Training Corporation (VTC) with support from the USAID/Jordan Tourism Development Project II and the Ministry of Labour. The luncheon series also has strong support from industry, with a number of five-star hotels financing the cost of the ingredients for the meals.

“The VTC Hospitality Training Program is the result of an innovative Public Private Partnership between the USAID/ Jordan Tourism Development Project, the Vocational Training Corporation, the E-TVET Fund and the Ministry of Labour and, most importantly, the hospitality industry itself,” said H.E. Dr. Ibrahim Amosh, Minister of Labour.

H.E. Mr. Majed Habashneh comments: “This event is an excellent opportunity not only to market our students’ skills, but also to demonstrate to parents and guests the quality and effectiveness of vocational training in Jordan.”

“The cooking series is a fun way for students of hospitality to apply their skills in practice and the initiative will also help raise awareness about the program and the nature of working in the hospitality sector,” said Mr. Ibrahim Osta, Chief of Party of the USAID/Jordan Tourism Development Project II.

The USAID project supported the “Cooking for Parents” series in several ways, helping produce the menus and invitations and facilitating fundraising for the event from hotels in Jordan. The Intercontinental Hotels Group, Moevenpicks, Sheraton and Royal hotels, along with Saraya, each contributed funding for the initiative. As well as enabling students to show off the skills they have learnt to their parents, the series supports efforts to increase awareness about taking up studies in hospitality-related fields and creates greater acceptance for working in the tourism sector, particularly hotels.

A parent who attended one of the cooking sessions, Mrs. Nihad Mahmoud, expressed her joy at her daughter joining the hotel and tourism program, saying, “I encouraged my daughter to take up vocational training as the image of working in hotels has improved and it is more accepted now.”

Her daughter, 19 year-old VTC student Nancy Hisham, is enjoying the hotel and tourism program at Abu Nusseir Center, and said, “Since I was small I have been dreaming of becoming a chef and I’m really excited about the practical training, which I’m going to start next month at the Sheraton Hotel.”

The tourism sector provides many career opportunities for Jordanians as well as attractive salaries; in the next five years tourism will provide 25,000 jobs in Jordan. Since 2007 the Ministry of Labour and VTC, supported by the USAID/Jordan Tourism Development Project, have been working to upgrade vocational training in hotel and tourism in Jordan in order to be able to provide the skilled human resources needed to meet the increasing demand for hospitality workers in Jordan. The VTC Certificate Level I in Hospitality Skills, which includes six-month internships at four and five-star hotels around Jordan as well as in Restaurants and related service industries, was introduced in 2007. Since then enrollment at the VTC centers has doubled and the proportion of female students studying at VTC tourism and hospitality centers has increased from a negligible number to about 30%.