A recommendation for tourism education in pre-school and primary school period

Countries need to focus on education in order to keep up with the requirements of the age in the rapidly developing world, to ensure social and economic development, to increase the need for qualified workforce and to take their place in the global competition. It is a system that has deep meanings in the concept of education and that develops thanks to the knowledge and experience shaped according to the changing world. This system; It aims to meet the talent, skills and quality workforce needs of the society, to complete the deficiencies and to raise sensitive individuals by increasing social awareness. In the millennium age where the importance of education has increased so much, vocational education is of vital importance for every sector. In particular, the tourism sector is the area where vocational training is most needed. Because tourism plays an important role in the development of a country. It is imperative that such an important sector be supported by education. The awareness of the society towards domestic and foreign tourists increases the demand for tourism. This awareness will become more permanent with tourism education given at an early age. Giving tourism education and creating tourism awareness in pre-school and primary education period cannot be discussed not only for sectoral education but also for creating a social tourism consciousness. In this context, tourism education in early childhood will provide significant advantages both for tourism and for the new generation. The current situations and evaluations of tourism education in the early childhood period of our country and the world have been examined in our study. In the research, the interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was applied to the academicians of the preschool and classroom teaching department. With the interview form applied, questions were asked to the academicians about their thoughts about tourism education, at what age this education should be given, the importance of tourism education, the areas of development that can contribute to children, and the tourism education that teachers should receive, a total of 6 questions were included. The sample of the research consists of 15 people who are academicians of preschool and classroom teaching departments at Kastamonu University and Sinop University Faculty of Education. In the analysis of the data, the MAXQDA qualitative data analysis program was used.