SHATEC changing overnight

In Year 2006, Mr. Stanley Lee has joined Shatec as the new Chief Executive and we sincerely welcomed him to the big Shatec family. But as time goes, changes he had made and decisions he had done have really let us doubt whether Shatec is still an ideal place for hospitality studies.

Let me list down some of the problems that we think its not appropriate.

Firstly, Mr. Lee changed names of our Shatec restaurants which have been our proud for the past 20 yrs. We understand he is trying to change the perception of how people view us by injecting names that is more fashionable. But personally I think they are just names that are thought roughly. It doesnt show any efforts. Just to let everyone know, the name for the two restaurants is Charcoal and White. Do give opinion and whether you agree with my previous statement.

Secondly, Mr. Lee had changed one of the restaurants from a fine dining restaurant into a cafe type restaurant. We understand that he tried to change it into a more modern dining restaurant and at the same time also to earn more profit. But to the student point of view, we are learning fine dining services in our school-based training restaurant. Yet we are going out for attachments in a cafe style restaurant. Does that mean only one part of our students will practice their hand-ons in Rosette and the other half practically doing nothing but making sandwiches? Are we told or trained to wear polo-tee and jeans for services?

Thirdly, we have an incident lately that is reshuffling in the education department.
We have no idea why the school is retrenching teachers, especially responsible and knowledgeable lecturers. We tried to think in the CE's business kind of mind and the only reason we got is that retrenching lecturers is one of the ways to cut the school budget. We know we have no say over what the CE had decided, but what we feel is our welfare is not being taken note of. 2Weeks into major exams and our lecturers are suddenly being retrenched and replaced. Being familiar to his/her teaching style, we believe it will definitely affect us in our coming examinations. We are not saying that other lecturers are not as good as the previous, but at least consider students welfare and let the lecturers finish the semester. The school teaches us to be a responsible person, yet they are doing irresponsible actions. If the head of an organization is not following what the organization is teaching, how can he/she possibly expect his/her followers to project him/her as a role model and follow what he/she does?
We are committed to excellence in our delivery of the educational courses and service to Students. We believe that the key to fulfilling our vision, mission and values lies in the excellent partnership between student, faculty and industry.
This is found in the Shatec website, one part of the speech by the CE. Everyone, lets ask ourselves frankly, is Shatec really providing excellence services to us students? By changing restaurants to cafй and retrenching lecturers just 2 weeks before exams?
He also mentioned about the key to fulfilling our vision, mission and values lies in the excellent partnership between student and faculty. Does the school even hold an event to let us decide the names of our restaurant? The answer is a No. So is that really called excellent partnership?

Lastly, we have learnt that Mr. Lee is from a business background and not a hospitality back ground. We realized that changes he had made perhaps are helping the school to earn more revenue. But yet at the same time losing our traditions and lecturers. Is that worth or not? Yes, profit is important for hoteliers like us, yet what is more important is the passion thats in us to provide a better service and to also groom better future leaders.
Does the CE have the passion? Or simply passion for earning more profits. This is one problem we hope to look into it. We students are paying school fees per semester to the School and since Shatec belongs to the SHA, we cant think of reasons why Shatec is having a budget Problem. We really hope something is to be done or at least we to be informed of what is happening in the school and not paying school fees blindly. Is it better for an experienced hotelier to lead a hospitality school, or is it better for a business-minded professional to lead? Its up to us, we have the right to choose, because we are eventually going to pay fees to the school.