The cooking-immigration nexus.(Report)

There has been a meteoric rise in enrolments of overseas students in cooking courses in Australia from around 1019 in 2004 to 8242 in 2008. All are trained in full-time courses conducted mainly by private providers - rather than via the apprenticeship system as is the case for Australian-trained cooks. Most of the overseas students who have finished these courses have subsequently gained permanent residence as cooks. Cooking is now the second largest occupation, behind accounting, among those gaining permanent entry visas under the onshore former overseas student visa subcategories. This article examines the rules governing the training and subsequent visaing of these cooks. It concludes that there are serious gaps in the rules governing their training and the assessment of their competency. In large part because of these deficiencies, only a minority obtain employment in Australia as trade level cooks.

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This is the second time we have reported on the links between overseas student enrolment in cooking courses and the migration process. The first report 'Cooks galore and hairdressers aplenty' was published in March 2007. (1) That report showed that the number of permanent resident visas issued to cooks, pastrycooks and bakers (henceforth referred to as cooks) was rapidly expanding, and that most were former overseas students who had taken cooking courses in Australia. Our interest was stimulated by a raft of anecdotal evidence that an explosion in enrolments in cooking and hairdressing courses was occurring and that this was being fuelled by a bourgeoning industry of migration agents and private education providers. The overseas students were prepared to pay for this instruction, so it was alleged, because it led to a permanent residence (PR) visa.

Our analysis in 2007 confirmed this anecdotal picture. It also projected that there would be a sharp increase in the number of visas issued to migrants with cooking and hairdressing qualifications if the immigration rules were not changed. The implication was that Australia's migration program was being driven by the migration industry. This would have mattered less if the cooks and hairdressers being visaed had achieved skills equivalent to Australian trade standards (that is, equivalent to those of domestic apprentices on completion of their indentures). Our conclusion was that this was probably not the case, because the overseas students in question were receiving their training via an institutional pathway involving full-time training conducted by a provider. This could be a Technical and Further Education (TAFE), or more often, a private provider, whose business was dependent on student fees for its income. Our review of training standards offered by these private providers indicated a widespread view that the training outcomes varied, often falling well short of those expected of Australian trainees who had completed a cooking indenture. (2)

It was not possible to be certain about this skill judgement. This was because Trades Recognition Australia (TRA), the agency delegated by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) to determine whether applicants for PR who held trade qualifications had actually achieved trade standards, was not empowered to conduct any independent competency testing of applicants, whether of cooks or of any other trade.

The present report examines the response of the various regulatory authorities responsible for the training and assessment of cooks for migration purposes in the light of the recent public debate on the issue. The focus is on cooks, because of the sharply increasing scale of the intake of onshore migrants claming this qualification.

ENROLMENT AND VISA LEVELS