Minister views ongoing work on tourism academy project |24 July 2014

Minister St Ange on his tour of the new facilities

A tourism delegation led by Minister Alain St Ange visited the Seychelles Tourism Academy (STA) this week to assess ongoing work to construct a new school there.

Also present during the visit was the principal of STA Flavien Joubert and staff of the academy.
Already two blocks have been completed. The first one, which is for the students studying management, has three classrooms, a computer room and library. It is expected to welcome the new batch of management students by this September.

The second block for the other students following diploma courses has 15 classrooms and each classroom can cater for around 30 students.
“We are happy that this phase, even though we are seven months late, is almost complete so that the students coming to our country this September to do their practical will be using the new management faculty,” Minister St Ange said.

“We have a few bits of ground work to do which will be done now, and also to clean the lower car park so that the Seychelles Land Transport Agency can come and tarmac the area,” Minster St Ange added.

The only facility yet to be completed in that phase is the kitchen, that will have a restaurant attached to it so that the students can learn in the kitchen and serve guests accordingly. The infrastructure has already been built and all that is left to do is put the equipment in place.

“All the equipment has already arrived and we hope that in ten days’ time we can have it cleared and removed from the port so that they can be put in place as we are hoping that the kitchen is completed by October 15,” said Minister St Ange.

The second phase of the project which entails the management and administration block is expected to be completed this December.
“After the second phase is completed, we will then decide how we will take on the third phase which is the hotel component of this project,” Minister St Ange explained.

While on this visit Minister St Ange also had the chance to attend the final practical presentation of the management students before they leave for Shannon College in Ireland for their bachelor degree in hotel management.

Speaking to Seychelles Nation Mr Joubert said: “It is disheartening that the project has not been completed on time as I have been marketing our school in China and a lot of students had expressed their willingness to come and do their full theory here instead of doing only their practical. So we hope when the project is completed we can start catering for these students by the end of next year.”

The STA already has a group of 42 Chinese students who will complete their practical at the end of August. They availed of the ministerial delegation’s visit to demonstrate their talents by hosting a lunch for their guests.