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SINGAPORE: Republic Polytechnic (RP) will open a new hospitality school in April, in partnership with the Raffles Hotels and Resorts.
Under the collaboration, students will be attached to the hotel chain's properties, both in Singapore and overseas.
Industry players said the new school will ease the manpower crunch in the tourism industry.
The Raffles Hotel is known internationally for its quality service and students from the Republic Polytechnic will be able to learn the trade from the 'grand dame' herself.
The hospitality school will be situated at RP’s campus in Woodlands which will offer a new diploma in Hotel and Hospitality Management.
RP currently offers two other hospitality-related diplomas in integrated events management and customer relationship and service management. These will be brought under the new school.
Students will be able to undergo their attachments in the Raffles Hotels in Singapore and overseas.
Republic Polytechnic is also converting one of its hostel blocks into an on-site training facility and this could also be open to the public in the future.
The latest programme will take in about 150 students. They will join some 9,000 others who are currently pursuing hospitality courses at other polytechnics, the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Shatec.
These institutions tell Channel NewsAsia that the demand for such courses has increased in the last few years.
Temasek Polytechnic (TP), which has the biggest intake of hospitality students among the five polytechnics, has had to offer more courses.
Others have also expanded their intakes. Over at Nanyang Polytechnic, there are now 109 places for the 2008/9 academic year, compared to 90 places in the previous cohort.
At Singapore Polytechnic, it will take in 140 students for its Diploma in Tourism and Resort Management, up from 100 last year.
Over at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, the same course was launched in 2006 with an initial batch of 80 students and a year later, that figure jumped to 120.
Meanwhile, Shatec, which has over 1,700 students, said that its courses have been running at full capacity for the last two years and there is a physical limit to how much it can expand.
And that's got some industry players concerned. They say the crunch will get worse with the opening of the two Integrated Resorts by 2010.
Diana Ee-Tan, Managing Director of Raffles Hotels and Resorts, said: "From Singapore's perspective, we are already facing a manpower shortage, which is why you hear industry professionals have already been appealing to the Ministry of Manpower to consider relaxation of work permits and so forth, to allow Singapore to bring in more foreign workers."
In the meantime, Raffles, which aims to triple its staff size by 2011, expects to hire about 20 per cent of each cohort in the new hospitality school. - CNA/vm
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