Auckland Hotel and Chefs Training School has become the latest casualty of COVID-19. The 34 year old private training institution cites the impact of New Zealand’s border closures as the key reason behind its decision to shutdown.
Based in Newmarket Auckland, the school has eight staff, 60 students, half from overseas, and focuses heavily on cookery and food service training.
General manager Paul Anderson says it was with much sadness that he informed the students currently enrolled at AHCTS that the school was closing.
“Our students returned to training when New Zealand moved to level 3, with classes being divided between multiple kitchens,” says Paul.
“With the Covid-19 pandemic there was a complete turnaround from high demand for trained chefs to virtually no demand for new trainees. International border closures have also prevented international students from travelling to study.”
AHCTS is supporting cookery students to transition to other providers.
The five tutorial and three management staff were notified of the closure a few weeks ago and were involved in developing a programme to support students’ on-going study.
AHCTS has informed the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) it will close on June 26 due to the impacts of COVID-19 on its viability. TEC is contacting all students to provide options for other institutions and said it expects all students to be able to transfer to a suitable provider.
TEC has also said students will continue to receive any weekly support they are entitled to until the date of closure and can continue to receive these if they transfer to alternative providers in order to complete studies.
