For the first time in almost 20 years, a Certificate III in Baking will be held at the Orange TAFE campus this year.
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The new course is in response to a demand in baker and pastry chef roles in regional NSW and to help cut travel times for apprentice bakers who are completing four-year apprenticeships.
Although existing apprentices will be brought into the campus later in the year, entries are still welcome for new students before the course starts at the end of the month.
Bakery and commercial cookery head teacher Amanda Glassop said there were about 100 bakery apprentices within a two hour drive of Orange who have to drive to Sydney for their training.
Ms Glassop said the new course would make it easier for those students and their employers by giving the students access to quality training without having to travel as far.
She said the new TAFE NSW training would also provide students with practical and hand-on skills to be able to bake in a commercial bakery/kitchen environment utilising state-of-the-art new equipment.
"There's a new baking training policy that was released last year that stipulates that every baking apprentice has to have access to all the equipment [used in the industry]," Ms Glassop said.
"They said the students have to be able to do all the things that are in the trade.
"They can't do all those things in an apprenticeship so they would have to come to an actual place [to learn extra skills]."
She said some bakeries may focus solely on making breads or only cakes so students could no longer only complete on the job training.
However, she said when the requirements for them to attend a training provider were introduced last year there were only six TAFE campuses in NSW that provided the subject.
"Most were on the east coast, nothing west of here," Ms Glassop said.
"At bakeries, even apprentices will start work at 3am so when they are driving in the afternoon it's a recipe for disaster."
She said the students had to attend a course once a week but students in regional areas would no longer have to travel so far with the new courses being introduced to the Orange and Wagga Wagga TAFE campuses.
"We know there's about 100 baking apprentices within a two-hour radius of Orange, a one to two hour drive is better than a five to six hour drive," Ms Glassop said.
To cater for the students, Ms Glassop said thousands of dollars worth of new equipment had been purchased such as new mixers, four deck ovens and a mixer that could take 80 kilograms of dough.
She said the students would work at an industrial scale such as making 30 cakes in a day with three different types of cake, which could be given to charities or used in fundraising events.
While completing their four-year apprenticeships the students will attend two and a half years of TAFE.
Anyone interested in the course should contact Ms Glassop by phoning 6391 5684.
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