Member for Calare John Cobb opened the centre at Orange Christian School on Friday night. 

However, principal Melissa Brown said the school’s students would not be the only ones to benefit.

“We’ll have the full hospitality class next week because we also have students coming from Orange Anglican Grammar School and we’ve had interest from people to use it outside school hours,” she said. “There’s a lot of people who start out with great ideas but don’t have a commercial kitchen available.”

Mrs Brown said there were opportunities for cooking and barista classes to be held at the facility, and the long-term plan was to add a hall to hold community and school events.

“When students leave school, some will have a gap year and many of them will go into the hospitality industry, so we hope they will be able to gain employment straight away,” she said.

School-based classes started on Wednesday.

With the help of a $1.18 million grant, the school’s existing technical and applied studies building was refurbished for the certificate II construction pathways students.

Certificate II kitchen operations students will study from the new building, which features a cafe and bar, a commercial kitchen, classroom, food storage areas, male and female change rooms and an office.

Mr Cobb said the school community and partnering organisations thought about Orange’s future needs and devised a plan to make a tangible difference.

“I’ve always been of the belief that tradespeople are the core of our society and only 30 per cent go to uni - not everyone wants to finish [school],” he said.

“Now, they can get their HSC having basically done all the technical education required for the first two years of an apprenticeship.

“It’s about being flexible.”

danielle.cetinski@fairfaxmedia.com.au