With more than 24 years of experience in the housekeeping and hospitality industry, Mrs. Tracy Hinkson, who is also a tutor at the Samuel Jackman Prescott Institute of Technology (SJPI), collaborated with the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council in the development of its National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in Housekeeping Supervision Level 3.
During her four months with the Council, Mrs. Hinkson shared her experience stating: “What I did there is to analyze the units to make sure they were of quality in that they met the industry standard and, in some areas, how we can exceed the industry standard.” She continued: “So, we did quite a bit of tweaking where necessary…and included parts of the units which we found would’ve been able to make the standard of a higher quality.”
With tourism being one of Barbados' primary sources of foreign exchange, Mrs. Hinkson states that with the development of the Level 3 programme, it is her hope that those with years of experience in the field will seek to couple it with the qualification.
“Barbados is a real global market at this time. Therefore, in order to be more competitive you need to make sure that your staff in housekeeping, which to me is a very important department – know what they have to do, can do it at every interval and therefore are qualified to do so,” Hinkson said.
“I would like to encourage persons to get qualified. I definitely find that in the hospitality sector, especially in housekeeping you have experienced staff, but not necessarily qualified staff. It is important then, that staff become qualified so that they have a backing behind all of their years of experience,” She added.
As Mrs. Hinkson continues on her career path in training, teaching and housekeeping, she expressed her delight at being part of the Council’s work in standards development, while also sharing her expectations following the approval of the qualification.
She concluded: “I think the outcome would be really good in that, the course is a quality course, it’s going to produce quality persons in the industry with lots of knowledge and skills sets. So, if everything goes as planned, it would definitely be a good programme for persons to undertake and for TVET Council to have as part of its curriculum.”