Second chance for students
Teens leaving college with barely any qualifications are being given a second chance at a free Porirua hospitality school.
A Trade and Commerce hospitality training college opened on March 7 in Lydney Pl, at the former Aqua pub, and has already signed up six students.
Its year-long course is designed to get 16 and 17-year-olds to NCEA level 2, teaching them skills to get a job in the food industry, or the minimum requirements to enter a polytechnic. The scheme is financed by a new government fund, the Youth Guarantee Scheme.
Many teenagers feel like round pegs in a square hole at college, says Christine ChanHyams, the course programme manager.
‘‘They kind of fall through gaps in the net and we pick them up through this course,’’ she says.
The first half of the year is devoted to employment skills like CV writing and interviews.
‘‘There’s a big section on planning your own future. A lot of these kids don’t know what they’re doing next week,’’ she says.
Hospitality training is the focus later in the year, so if teens drop out they will still have an employment skills certificate under their belt.
Hospitality was chosen as the school’s focus because it does not take long to learn or require prior knowledge.
While training formally starts mid-year, Ms Chan-Hyams has already been holding cookery classes in the afternoons, which the teenagers get a real kick out of, she says.