KENINGAU:The Keningau Vocational College (KV Keningau) team emerged as overall champions for the apprentice category beating eight other colleges in the 23rd Sabah Hospitality Fiesta held at the Sabah International Convention Center in Kota Kinabalu recently.
Team KV Keningau consisting 14 students managed to collected one gold, four silver and three bronze medals with a score of 70 points in six contested categories.
Second place was won by Ascot Academy with two golds, one silver and one bronze with a cumulative score of 45 points while third place was won by Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology with four silvers and one bronze and a score of 45 point.
Seven other colleges that participated in this fiesta, namely Polytechnic Kota Kinabalu collected two silver and three bronze medals with a score of 35 points, Ati College one silver and five bronze (35), Cosmopoint College Kota Kinabalu with one silver and three bronze medals (25), Tawau Vocational College three bronze (15), Sarikei Community College with two bronze (10), Beaufort Community College two bronze (10) and Segi College Sarawak with one bronze (5).
KV Keningau Head of Research and Innovation, Dr Sirhajwan Idek that there were two main categories, the apprentice category for institutes of learning that offer hospitality programmes and the professional category for the hospitality and tourism industry.
He said, the competition was jointly organised by Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) and Asian Tourism International (ATI) College.
“A gold medal was won by two bakery and pastry students, Aimee Farah Adhirah and Ashraf Daniel Anuar in the wedding cake decoration category.
“A silver medal was successfully won in this category by two students, Clementina Cynthia Moduin and Angela Rusli, who are also from the same stream,” he said.
He said two students from the culinary arts stream, Amyra Natasyah Ismail and Nur Afiqa Muhd Safwan Sajani, contributed two silver medals separately in the table setting category.
The fourth silver medal was won by Danial Jauhari Sidar from the culinary arts stream in the black box hot cooking category while another participant from the college, Faiz Asmaan Hamizan Rujili, won a bronze medal in the same category.
“The second bronze medal was obtained through the fruit and vegetable carving category represented by Nur Haziqah Mairah Ah Yuk @ Awang and another student who successfully contributed a bronze medal was Anievizetty Binius who competed in the professional level hot cooking category.
“KV Keningau successfully clinched the overall champion title for the apprentice category and received the championship trophy and the round trophy,” he said.
Dr Sirhajwan said there were 20 professional categories and six apprentice categories contested.
He said the college team was trained, managed and accompanied by KV Keningau hospitality teachers namely Saumon Maliki, Saleha Suhaidin, Syuaib Samijan, Erma Gagah, Kimberly V Usit, Nor Ruzaimah Zahari, Siti Yusrina Adnan and Aleena Ameera Seleh.
Meanwhile, he said, for the professional category, a total of 24 hotels and tourism centers participated in the category where Sutera Harbor Resort was crowned the overall champion.
The director of KV Keningau, Nordin Akup, expressed his pride and joy with the achievement because it shows how important it was for students at the college to take seriously every type of skill learned and always practice high discipline to ensure the best service.