BUSSELTON Senior High School held a chef demonstration on June 22 to promote careers in hospitality, with the help of Food by the Chef’s George Cooper.
The event took place in the Busselton Trade Training Centre’s fully equipped commercial kitchen and cafe.
Cooper said the facility gave students the opportunity to work in a commercial kitchen setting.
“It is like a commercial kitchen out the back there, so it is not like you are going to your Grandma’s house to cook,” he said.
“The students get to play with a lot of the equipment that you get in a commercial kitchen, and really see the set up and how it runs.”
Students who take part in the BSHS Certificate II in Kitchen Operations are able to train in the TTC kitchen facility as part of their course.
BSHS Certificate II Kitchen Operations coordinator Kelly Fitzpatrick said the kitchen was up to industry standards.
“It reflects what industry is doing and what the expectations are when the students get out into their work placements and apprenticeships,” she said.
“With everything we have in the South West, a lot of the kids have not been exposed to some of the finer points of hospitality, but that is what we are hoping to do, we are hoping to inspire.”
Cooper said it was important that the industry started grabbing the next generation of chefs at school age and show them that it is just not a job where you earn $45,000 a year and work 16 hours a day.
He said it was important to start encouraging young children into the industry as soon as possible.
“At the minute we have a bit of a shortage of chefs, that is why I am quite keen to bring the next generation on and show them [being a chef] is not just about cooking sausage rolls or frying fish and chips, it is about enjoying what you do,” he said.
“It does not have to be just a job.”
But he warned being a chef required a lot of hard work.
“When I started my qualification in the English version of TAFE, we started off with about 25 students and I think only about four of us graduated after two years,” he said.
“There is a big fallout rate just because people think it is an easy ride.
“But it can be very rewarding and it is possibly one of the only jobs out there that you can travel the world very easily with.”
Along with providing a professional place for students in the South West to learn skills, the TTC kitchen can also be hired out by local businesses in the community.
For TTC facility hire enquiries contact Rebecca Wilkinson on 9754 9333 or rebecca.wilkinson@education.wa.edu.au.
