First colleges accredited to deliver cookery diploma to be revealed

02 April 2009 by
First colleges accredited to deliver cookery diploma to be revealed

The first colleges to be accredited to deliver the new Professional Cookery Diploma are to be revealed tonight at an event in Northamptonshire.

At the Professional Association for Catering Excellence (Pace) conference dinner at Whittlebury Hall in Towcester, tonight, National Skills Academy for Hospitality chief executive David McHattie will reveal the first colleges to be recognised for their excellence in delivering the new diploma.

The year-long diploma is one of the new Vocationally Related Qualifications (VRQs) introduced to replace the defunct City & Guilds 706.

It has been widely trailed as a way of addressing the sector's chronic skills crisis and has been in development at several colleges since 2006.

The diploma and colleges are not, however, without their critics, with the general standard of education receiving a bashing earlier this month from Gordon Ramsay, while John Williams, executive chef at the Ritz in London, attacked the quality of VRQs.

The UK-based Association Culinaire Française, whose members are drawn from some of the country's leading catering colleges, has also now gone on record questioning whether VRQs will deliver the skills required in commercial kitchens (see Letters in Caterer this week).

However, McHattie said he was confident the diploma was thorough and robust, and said picking out those colleges delivering it to the standard required was "exactly why the academy is here".

"Not everyone can be excellent but we'll be announcing the first four that are," McHattie told Caterersearch.

The Pace conference marks the next stage in the National Skills Academy, which aims to highlight to employers, employees and parents the good work being done in the hospitality sector. For more see our hospitality skills round-up>>

Hospitality centre launched to skill up workers ahead of London Olympics>>

‘Employer champions' sign up for new hospitality diploma>>

Catering college to open at old Daily Mail HQ>>

People 1st's Brian Wisdom interview>>

Hospitality sector gears up to promote new diploma>>

By Chris Druce

E-mail your comments to Chris Druce here.

Caterersearch.com jobs
Looking for a new job? Find your next restaurant job here with Caterersearch.com jobs.

Blogs on Caterersearch.com](http://www.caterersearch.com/blogs) Catch up with more news and gossip on all Caterer's blogs
[Newsletters For the latest hospitality news, sign up for our e-mail newsletters.
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking