The Directorate of Industrial and Vocational Training (DIVT) is in the process of rolling out food preparation trade test for cooks. On June 07 and 08, the DIVT assembled industry experts in the field of food preparation together with lecturers from Eswatini College of Technology’s Tourism and Hospitality department for the purpose of developing the trade testing standards or competencies for cooks.

It is anticipated that later this year, the first trade test for cooks will be conducted for about 32 candidates. The trade tests will be conducted at the newly refurbished ECOT Hospitality and Tourism Department’s demonstration kitchen. The kitchens were recently fitted with over E3, 000 000 worth of equipment by the Republic of China (Taiwan).  ECOT and DIVT have long standing relationship in sharing resources for trade testing activities from electrical to automotive repairs.

The experts involved in the development of the cook competencies (assessment instruments) included seasoned chef Vusumuzi Ngubeni from Happy Valley Hotel, Siyabonga Mashinini from The George Hotel and Lomkhosi Gule who now runs her own business having worked in several hospitality industries like Royal Swazi Spa. In developing the trade testing standards, they harvested the competencies from the recently completed Hospitality and Tourism Qualification.

Except for the ECOT lecturers, the experts who developed the hospitality and tourism qualification were different from the experts engaged for the formulation of trade testing standards. This has been made to ensure that there are less loopholes in the new trade. The trade testing standards for cook trade will be released to the public in due course and applications will follow suit.

The workshop for the development of the trade testing standards had been fully funded by the Technical and Vocational Skills Certification Project of the Taiwan Technical Mission. The Deputy Director Maqakala Dlamini speaking at the workshop, thanked the Taiwanese project for the continued support and said that the trade test for cooks will change help a lot of Emaswati get employment and be respected in the hospitality industry. He also thanked ECOT administration and the hospitality industries for releasing their chefs to the workshop.