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tourism environments, sustainable develop-
ment and customer service. Such a replacement
could lead to an improvement of students'
skills but it does not change the old activity-
oriented approach. New teaching methods have
to be implemented to create wider opportunities
for students to learn more about real-world
problems.
tourism. This approach has already been par-
tially adopted in a number of situations (Faché,
1996),
but
it
is
still
unpopular
in
tourism
education in Poland.
International student and
teacher exchange
Undertaken mainly within the framework of
the SOCRATES-ERASMUS scheme and via bilat-
eral cooperation between universities and schools,
this provides an opportunity to transfer knowl-
edge and skills and adapt them to a national
socio-economic context, thereby assisting bench-
marking. Polish students are interested in the
Erasmus programme, but it is difficult to assess if
this is a temporary, transient interest arising from
the initial enthusiasm for Poland's EU accession.
Focus on practical training and fieldwork
as problem-based action learning: future
direction of tourism education?
The concept of problem-based action learning
was originally modelled on the lines of problem-
based education in some progressive medical
schools in North America, where students work
in clinics and see real patients with real feelings
and real problems (Barrows and Tamblyn,
1980) and of engineering education at the
Harvey Mudd College (Claremont, California)
where students work on campus on real projects
for real clients with real budgets and real dead-
lines (Remer, 1992).
In professional education relating to leisure,
culture and tourism, student teams can solve
real problems for real clients in problem-based
fieldwork projects. As a consequence, the field-
work project is not only related to the content of
students' academic subjects, but also allows
students to make positive contributions to orga-
nizations in the community. Problem-solving
fieldwork can therefore best be carried out with
the collaboration of businesses, such as hotels,
boat trip operators and tour-operators, and gov-
ernmental organizations, such as tourist informa-
tion centres and museums. Such an approach is
implemented by many higher education institu-
tions, mainly at the bachelor (first degree) level.
Efforts to educate skilled people who will both
meet tourists' needs and attain economic bene-
fits, is important for effective, practical business.
Real-world problems, project selection and
team work - new components of the educa-
tional process in Poland - are essential for pre-
paring students for effective employment in the
tourism sector.
Fieldwork with students and professors on
one hand and with professionals on the other is
an appropriate and innovative methodological
approach to learning how to improve quality in
An increase in the role of the private
sector in higher education
The private sector is usually more flexible than
the state sector and is quicker to react to market
changes. Private higher education institutions
fill many niches in the labour market including
hospitality management, tourism management,
and small enterprise management.
A focus on the teaching of foreign
languages and information technologies
Foreign languages and ICT are of course essen-
tial tools for effective work in the sector, and
have become a specific feature of every educa-
tional tourism programme. Such a focus pro-
vides an opportunity to improve communication
between tourism companies and clients and
builds a competitive environment for tourism in
aglobalmarket.
On the whole, the process of reforming
tourism education in Poland is well on its way
and it is expected that graduates will possess
skills linked to the development of both Polish
and international tourism markets. However,
both private and public institutions of higher
education in Poland engaged in educating for
the tourism sector need to work together to
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