Oh dear; more longing and wavering and hiding again
The little boy sits alone in his classroom, struggling with a difficult mathematical problem. Five cats sit on mats and are joined by another, but two cats find the mats uncomfortable and walk away. How many cats are left?
Teacher joins the boy and explains the concept of addition and subtraction again. It's not the first time and it won't be the last. Patience is required. Keep repeating the same message. Five-plus-one-take-away-two is less than the number you started with.
Several stories this week point to the exacerbation of the skills shortage. According to the Training Standards Council, catering students on many work-based training programmes are dropping out before qualification (see page 4). Gardner Merchant chairman Garry Hawkes says that many college courses are "awful", and it's not surprising that the intakes are falling year on year.
Employment Minister Andrew Smith has suggested that hospitality has attracted 11,000 New Deal candidates (page 14). This has sparked controversy, because the industry has turned round and said "Oh yeah? Where are they? The number is fiction. New Deal isn't working."
Industry is quick to shrug off responsibility for what's happening: "We do our best on the practical side, but work-related theory classes are dull, colleges are under-resourced, and New Deal candidates aren't up to scratch."
The New Deal programme has been in operation for more than a year. It was launched amidst the euphoria that the Government was alive to the skills shortage in hospitality, and that the industry was being recognised as important enough to vanguard this revolutionary idea.
But this magazine warned at the time that the New Deal was only one component in the fix for the skills shortage (Caterer 16 July 1998, page 19) and that there wasn't an instant cure-all for the problem. There is bound to be disappointment if cracks appear in the plan. But industry must not be so quick to blame initiatives or colleges for what appears to be a problem of its own making.
The Training Standards Council says - and this is the crux of the matter - that work-based students are dropping out of courses because of "poor pay and long, often unsociable hours". It's the same old story.
The mathematical equation would be simpler if five cats sat on mats and were joined by another and no cats walked away. But while cats continue to find mats uncomfortable - while poor working conditions remain - no amount of carping about Government schemes or college courses will solve the root cause of the skills shortage.
Teachers must be patient. They must keep on repeating the message. Get it right on the mats and the cats will stay. Only then will five plus one equal six. n
Forbes Mutch
Editor, Caterer & Hotelkeeper
