Work Integrated Learning for the culturally diverse Hospitality Industry in South Africa and the example of Germany

Abstract

The hospitality industry in South Africa, including hotels, motels, guest houses, and bed and breakfast operations, restaurants, fast food outlets, catering companies, night clubs, pubs and time share, will be in dire straits if new employees, more especially graduates are not skilled and appropriately competent. Many students undertake a mandatory Work Integrated Learning (WIL- experiential learning, internship period), period in the hospitality industry which is usually a significant undertaking. A number of students are not provided with the necessary opportunity to perfect their skills and are often frustrated by their experience which is far from satisfactory as far as they are concerned. This paper maintains that the student/trainee should be provided greater opportunities from which to learn more about how the industry functions and empowered to be effective in the future industry role they will serve in as is the case in Germany, and this should be the primary concern of both industry and the education provider. Industry often considers students to be cheap sources of semi-skilled or skilled labour and uses them to fill gaps in staffing shortages without following a meaningful programme. What should be done to facilitate a smoother experiential learning for the learners and how can we learn from the experiences of the hospitality industry in leaders in the field such as Germany?