Page 7 - Big Ideas | Issue 1

Education
Since completing our renovations in April, we’ve held two open interview sessions and interviewed over 150 prospective students for short courses and other programs at Welcome Ideas. We’ve completed
our first 3 short course programs including Introduction to Tourism, Tourism Leadership Development, and Food Safety. We’ve admitted 42 students and have more than 100 students waiting for future short courses. In addition to the three courses that were completed by the first cohort of students, we’ve also begun to offer classes in IT and Cultural Heritage in Tourism.
Although only 1/3 of our applicants were female, we are trying to ensure at least a 50/50 balance of men and women. We believe this is important to ensure that women have equal access to the many opportunities afforded by tourism business entrepreneurship on Zanzibar. We have already begun efforts to increase our female applicant pool for future admissions interviews.
We are looking forward to continuing to increase our capacity.
Big Ideas
Our goal by the end of the year is to have at least 60 students. We’re currently offering short courses, but as we hire teachers and buy more computers for our IT lab we will be able to offer certificate programs, followed shortly by diploma programs. At full capacity, we plan to have more than 100 students enrolled in our short course, certificate, and diploma programs at any given time.