Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) and the Education Bureau of Nansha District, Guangzhou signed the Framework Agreement on Occupational Training Co-operation at the 2013 Guangdong-Macao Cooperation Joint Conference on 14 June. Acting President of IFT, Ms. Florence Ian and the Head of the Education Bureau of Nansha, Guangzhou, Ms. Li Ai Hua presided over the ceremony. The cooperation agreement has been successfully reached after discussions and exchange visits, and mutual understanding on the cooperation between Nansha and Macao stated in the Framework Agreement on Co-operation between Macao and Guangdong, in order to essentially carry out the cooperation of professional technical education and training, as well as related exchanges and cooperation for tourism, hospitality and related areas of both territories, as agreed by the two parties. IFT will choose Ling Dong Vocational and Technical School in Nansha as the first cooperating unit to launch the professional and technical tourism and hospitality training. The two parties will establish long-term and continuous cooperation mechanism to promote professional and technical training in tourism and hospitality. Details of the cooperation agreement include: - Cooperate to implement exploratory research;
- Carry out exchange teaching activities;
- Jointly organise academic seminars, training courses on specific topics and so on. In order to effectively implement the cooperation, IFT and Ling Dong Vocational and Technical School both assigned coordinators to carry out effective and real-time communication between the two institutes, for following up the progress and planning of the cooperation projects. IFT has been dedicated to educating and training tourism and hospitality talents since its establishment. In addition to degree programmes, IFT has been providing foundation, intermediate and advanced level of courses for working adults and students of vocational colleges. In 1999, IFT developed the widely accepted Macao Occupational Skills Recognition System (MORS) in cooperation with the Europe Union. Up to now, there are 5,279 tourism professionals having passed the assessment of the System and 31 organisations certified as MORS training centre. In 2000, IFT introduced the System to the Mainland China in collaboration with Zhuhai No. 1 Vocational School, in order to share the advanced and international tourism education experience of IFT and Macao with the colleges in Mainland China. There are 408 students having participated in the training and assessment in Zhuhai. Currently, IFT plans to introduce MORS to Nansha, Guangzhou with the first collaboration with Ling Dong Vocational and Technical School for better preparing for training talents for enhancing regional tourism branding of Macao and Guangdong.