New Vocational College to Boost Human Capital in Service Industry

Last week the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, opened the vocational college Pazisi in Poti. As Saakashvili stated such schools provide professions to the younger generation, which for them is an opportunity to be employed and to provide their own means of support.

“Everybody understands that it is important to develop a specific skill in order to help yourself and your family. A person should work for several years and then go abroad to get higher education if he/she should choose to do so,” he said.

Saakashvili talked about current infrastructure developments at Black Sea resorts. According to the president, the construction of a 100-room hotel and another 50-room hotel is about to finish, and there will be another 60-room hotel next year. For the year 2013, 1,000 extra hotel rooms will become available. In Batumi alone, 1,000 rooms have been added since last year. These 1,000 rooms need a minimum of several hundred staff members who perform their jobs to a high standard.

“There are very talented people here, and we are good at hospitality, but our youth especially need permanent or even temporary jobs during the summer season. Students should be able to go to work and save up for tuition. That's why we are not only developing the resort zone, we are doing it systemically: the resorts, the infrastructure around the resorts, (meaning the roads, which I hope will be well-accommodated soon), the Poti Airport - in order for people to be able to arrive here and spend money on entertainment and pleasure. All of this will be led by the most important thing – qualified service industry workers, who will cater to tourists and set the economy in motion,” Saakashvili said.

Along with Mikheil Saakashvili, the Minister of Education and Science, Dimitri Shaskin, the general director of Poti Seaport, and the manager of Anaklia resort complex, "Golden Fleece," attended the opening of the reconstructed vocational college. These companies will offer internships and jobs to students of the college.