Students aspiring career in tourism lament absence of tourism in KU courses
Arif Bashir (Kashmir Images)
Srinagar, Apr 07: With the valley of Kashmir being flagged as the ‘most favored’ tourist destination, the Kashmir University and most of its affiliated colleges are yet to realize the need for having formal professional courses for tourism studies.
Tourism, which has been touted as the backbone of the state economy does not seem to be a favorable idea with the University of Kashmir – at least the absence of a regular course in tourism in the campus speaks loud about this missing dimension. Needless to say those aspiring for a career in tourism are equally cross with the varsity about it.
Although tourism is taught as a subject in some colleges here, however, the absence of a post-graduate or even a diploma course in tourism in the University of Kashmir discourages the students interested in higher studies in tourism. These students have to make a beeline to other universities outside the state, which comes with its own set of costs and problems.
“Kashmir being an ideal tourist destination must have special study courses aimed at sharpening and shaping positive attitude towards tourism and its applicability. But unfortunately it does not work this way,” says Amir, a fresh graduate who is interested to pursue tourism studies but lands in the Department of Law for obvious reasons.
Most of the students argue that the potential of the valley with regard to tourism is still not being utilized and maximum portion of it is yet unexplored owing to the lack of professional handling of the subject and the innovative method of maximizing its scope.
Interestingly, the Vice-chancellor of the University of Kashmir, who is out of the station, when contacted, had no comments about it and directed this reporter to talk to the Registrar of the University, who too couldn’t be contacted. “Tourism can only flourish when a culture is developed, a culture can be developed by building positive attitude towards it, which is not possible without professionals and trained manpower,” says Ishfaq, a student of Media Education Research Centre, University of Kashmir.
While the authorities in the J&K Tourism Department, Kashmir strongly uphold the idea of inducting trained professionals in Kashmir tourism, much remains to be done by the University of Kashmir in order to fill this gap by training tourism professional through formal education in the field.