More graduates from Kenya Utalii College continue to fill the acute tourism and hospitality skills shortage in the UK
By Bernard Amaya | 13th July, 2021
Covid-19 has had devastating effects on the global economy, and the impact on the tourism industry is unprecedented. Never before has the industry experienced such a crippling effect as a result of a health crisis. The coronavirus struck at the core of the industry leading to closure of hotels, restaurants, bars and casinos among other hospitality facilities. Consequently, many employees in the tourism sector have been rendered jobless.
In Kenya, graduates from Kenya Utalii College (KUC), the country’s premier hospitality and tourism training institution, bore the brunt of the pandemic. A good number found themselves without jobs. They didn’t know where to practice their highly treasured careers. Kenya’s tourism and hospitality sector is yet to get back to full operation and the overseas job market has opened opportunities for professionals from all over the world. Thanks to KUC’s initiative that carries out linkages between the college and the industry both locally and abroad, graduates have been able to secure jobs abroad.
The College turned to collaborations and linkages with international partners to secure employment for hundreds of the jobless graduates. A good example is the collaboration with Jersey Island recruiter GR8 Limited to hire trained personnel from Kenya and specifically KUC. For a start, the first batch of the graduates who did interviews in 2019 were airlifted to the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey. UK jobs have been very handy for the skilled yet unemployed hospitality graduates.
It is quite gratifying to note that the graduates who travelled to UK have done a commendable job. Their exemplary service has seen the British archipelago ask for more graduates from Kenya to fill the acute skills shortage.
Related Article: Utalii College Alumni Land Lucrative Jobs Abroad
KUC graduates continue to travel to the European country because of high demand for the highly skilled professionals from Kenya. So far, a total of 70 KUC alumni are working in the Channel Islands, and the number is set to grow.
The college is doing a superb job in opening doors to its graduates at a time of serious unemployment crisis. Through the overseas job placement initiative, the College has put the country on the global map. Kenyan professionals have also gotten an opportunity to showcase their skills and talents. The Ministry of Labour should take advantage of KUC’s overseas jobs plan to aggressively market our professionals abroad. Above all, the ministry working with foreign affairs should remove all logistical hiccups from the path to securing jobs overseas.
Bernard Amaya is a lecturer and an Alumni Coordinator, Kenya Utalii College
Some of us never had a stable job since we graduated from kuc,our local high end hotels hire from these other small colleges due to the name of their papers,I have noticed with a concern how on earth is a student in front office operations is graduating with a diploma after being in school for just 10 months while in two years I didn’t get a diploma at kuc but just a
certificate? This is not just funny but also not s good thing to our kuc students to be classified in such and the way we are highly trained.Hotel owners are going for diploma not certificate as some of them don’t care the no of years one was in college.
This is well noted John Irungu.
When is the next recruitment? and are the graduates from the University of Nairobi who did the course in collaboration with the KUC qualified for the recruitment?