(USAID) and the Ministry of Education – laid the cornerstone for hospitality and tourism training at School.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) laid the cornerstone for a new hospitality and tourism training department at the Jabal Al Qusoor Fundukia School. USAID Acting Deputy Mission Director John Dunlop and the MoE’s Director of Vocational Education Eng. Nawwaf Al Dughmi set the cornerstone.

USAID’s support to MoE is helping to modernize the school’s Fundukia program and its facilities to prepare students to work in the tourism sector and meet the hospitality industry’s demand for skilled workers. USAID’s Economic Growth Through Sustainable Tourism Project provided the MoE and the Ministry of Public Works with drawings of the proposed renovations to modernize Jabal Al Qusoor Fundukia School’s training labs.

As part of these renovations, the ground floor will become a food-and-beverage facility – a kitchen and a restaurant – and the first floor is being turned into a front office and housekeeping department. The MoE-funded JD220,000 renovation has started and is expected to be completed in six months. USAID is providing nearly JD16,000 worth of equipment for the food-and-beverage department.

More than 2,000 11th and 12th grade students at 25 high schools around Jordan are currently enrolled in the Fundukia hotel management program, according to Director of Vocational Education Al Dughmi.

Acting Deputy Mission Director Dunlop said the Fundukia hotel management program provides skilled candidates for a field that is crucially important for Jordan. “Tourism currently employs about 50,000 Jordanians, and will employ more as the sector grows,” he said at the ceremony.

Jabal Al Qusoor Secondary School began offering the Fundukia program in 1996. Roughly 100 students are currently enrolled in the school’s program