Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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99. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of chefs trained here in 2017. [29738/18]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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Currently, the total number of chefs trained in 2017 across both the Higher Education and Further Education and Training sector is not available.

An audit of hospitality courses in further and higher education was commissioned by SOLAS and the HEA on behalf of the Hospitality Skills Oversight Group, and its report was published in November 2017. The report provides a high level of analysis of the data available that shows the numbers of courses, enrolments and awards in the Hospitality Sector to enable the Group to determine how it might address the skill sets required by the sector and to aid it in identifying gaps in the provision of courses. This report shows that, for the Academic Period 2013-2015, 2,907 awards at Further Education and Higher Education level were awarded to graduates completing courses that are most readily associated with Chefs and Cooks.

The further education data relating to ‘Chefs and Cooks’ for the period of 2015-2016 only showed that there were 27 courses, on which there were 514 enrolments. Data from ETBs relating to a range of provision under the ’Food & Beverage’ and ‘Tourism & Sport’ Skills Clusters’for 2017 shows that there were 2,502 participants on programmes in these clusters, and that 1,567 completed such programmes in 2017.

The most recent Higher Educationgraduate data available is from 2016 and indicated that 1,058 students graduated from courses designated as ‘Hotel, restaurants and catering’ at levels 6-9 of the National Framework of Qualifications.