VUSSC/Mauritius BC/News/Yearwood

Belize

• Belize, located in central america, is bordered on the north by Mexico, west and south by Guatemala, and east by the Caribbean Sea. This location has certainly allowed the country to be strategically integrated into caribbean and central american affairs.

• Like many other caribbean destinations, tourism is a major income earner and the industry is comprised of mainly small businesses. With this, it is important that the country's human resources be developed to take on the challenges and competition of the growing services sector - in particular, tourism. What better way to do this than through education.

• Between 2001 and 2003, University of Belize became a part of an initiative headed by the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the Caribbean Tourism Learning System (CTLS). A common core curriculum was developed for caribbean tertiary institutions offering studies in Hospitality and Tourism. I must say that it was a privilege for me to participate in this project. Since then, the University of Belize has implemented this curriculum.

• The CTLS project later had an e-learning component. Again, I had the opportunity to participate in hands-on training using the Blackboard platform and a virtual workshop using ATUTOR.

• This has certainly been a journey for me. I am happy that the government of Belize has joined the VUSSC initiative and once again I have been given the opportunity to build on my distance learning skills. The past three weeks have been very informative and interesting. I have yet again been exposed to other concepts; "open source" and "open content". It's still new to me, but I like it. There are also some new software programs floating around in my head, but thanks to the "virtual PC", I don't have to memorize how to use them. This will definitely assist me in sharing information with potential contributors in Belize.

• I must say that it has indeed been a pleasure working with content contributors from other commonwealth states. We've been sharing information with each other about our countries while working hard at pooling together our content material. It would very wonderful to get the other units developed. It is my hope that when we return to our respective countries that we can keep the communication channels open in order to make this project a success.

• Thanks to COL for this opportunity. Thanks to the government of Belize. Thanks to the University of Belize for affording me the time off to be involved in this project here in Mauritius.