High Impact Tourism Training (HITT) Programme in Nepal

The High Impact Tourism Training (HITT) was a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programme implemented by the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV). It targeted informal workers from the tourism sector, notably women and youth, unskilled and semi-skilled workers in seven countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia: among them, Nepal. Through innovative solutions, the programme aimed to provide vocational training in tourism related activities to workers from the informal sector, women and youths - who usually had limited access to formal education - in order to increase their employability and income. After drawing the contours of the TVET sector and listing the main challenges to education in Nepal, the article shows how the HITT initiative chose to address them. Based on quantitative and qualitative evidence, we show that the strategy of intervention rests principally on two pillars: the introduction of active learning methods, and close collaboration with the private sector at every stage of the process, from the analysis of the sector and needs, to the design of the training, to the implementation. The article further dwells on the potentialities, limits and replicability of the HITT programme in Nepal.