From English Teacher to Tourism Instructor: Retraining at Corvinus

Back to news16/03/2026

From English Teacher to Tourism Instructor: Retraining at Corvinus

Professionals working in the tourism sector are typically the ones who apply for the Corvinus tourism manager programme. Ágnes Szigeti-Farkas, however, embarked on the programme after more than twenty years of teaching English. She now uses the knowledge she gained in the programme to teach tourism-related subjects in English at a vocational secondary school in Miskolc. Her story also highlights the hidden potential within secondary-level tourism education.

What professional background did you have when applying for the tourism manager specialisation programme, and why did you decide to enrol?

Ágnes Szigeti-Farkas: I have been teaching as an English language and literature teacher for more than twenty years, and for a long time I have been working in vocational education. Currently, I teach at the MSZC Berzeviczy Technical School in Miskolc, where this year we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of our German–Hungarian bilingual tourism programme. In 2020 we also launched a popular English–Hungarian bilingual tourism programme.

As a result, there was a strong need for teachers who, in accordance with the requirements set by regulations, possess a high level of professional knowledge and can teach tourism-related subjects in English. I have always been committed to continuous professional development, so I was happy to enrol in the postgraduate Cultural Tourism Manager programme at Corvinus, which I completed in May 2025.

Most participants in this programme work in the tourism industry. As a secondary school teacher, how can you make use of what you learned?

Many outstanding professionals from the tourism sector taught us or gave guest lectures during the programme, so I was in the fortunate position of being able to incorporate newly acquired knowledge into my lessons immediately, even while I was still studying.

Since then, I have continued to apply the knowledge gained during the tourism manager programme successfully. Among other things, I teach subjects such as country studies, procurement and sales, as well as advertising and sales promotion to our tourism technician students.

As an alumna of the programme and as a teacher working outside Budapest, how much contact have you maintained with former instructors and fellow students, and how useful has this professional network been for you?

I have kept in touch with several of my former classmates. Recently, one of them and I accompanied fifteen tourism students to a tourism workshop organised by the university.

The instructors I met during the programme remain very supportive, and as a former student I can turn to them with any professional questions. I also attend the programme’s annual alumni meeting and try to participate in professional events whenever possible.

As a teacher, what opportunities and development potential do you see in tourism education, and how do you view the current situation and challenges of secondary-level tourism training?

The biggest challenge, in my opinion, is the shortage of professionals who can teach specialised tourism subjects in a foreign language. Another issue is that teachers currently working in vocational education would benefit from access to a wider range of professional development opportunities to update their knowledge.

I am grateful to our maintainer, the Miskolc Vocational Training Centre, for supporting me in completing this programme.

Looking ahead, I believe it would be possible for teachers working in secondary-level vocational education to become involved in the high-quality tourism programmes of Corvinus University of Budapest through regularly organised professional training courses. This would allow them to bring the most up-to-date sectoral knowledge into their classrooms.