Modernizing vocational training in tourism and IT

Madagascar is experiencing a sharp rise in the number of young people arriving on the labor market. At the same time, training provision is fragmented, often unsuited to the economic reality, and lacks relevance in terms of business needs. The sectors of tourism and new information and communication technologies have been identified as priority sectors with high development potential in Madagascar.

For example, in 2013, the tourism sector in Madagascar accounted for 5.9% of GDP. However, the crisis in 2009 weakened the sector and the number of tourists falls every year. The new information and communication technologies (NICT) sector is a rapidly growing activity following substantial investments over the past decade to connect the country to the international network by fibre optics and develop the domestic network.

The project aims to:

• Modernize and build capacities in hotel-catering training;
• Build institutional capacities in order to develop skills in the tourism sector and prepare a nationwide program;
• Create new training capacities in IT sectors in order to meet business needs;
• Conduct an opportunity and feasibility study on the creation of a fund to finance vocational training. A hotel school will consequently be built and equipped to provide training in basic hotel and catering activities. The school will provide basic training for young people starting at the age of 15, but also apprenticeship training and continuous training for professionals. An IT school will also be created to implement sandwich course training at the degree and master’s degree levels, in partnership with the Ile-de-France Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The hotel school will train 250 people a year once it has reached cruising speed, i.e. after 4 years of activity. There will be:

• 100 young people in basic training (20 per sector: kitchen, room service, restaurant service, bar, guide);
• 100 trainees in continuous training (retraining, specialization);
• 50 apprentices for one week a month.

The IT school will produce some 200 graduates a year at its normal rate: 96 senior technicians at Degree 3 level and 96 IT engineers at Master’s 2 level.