CTH announces new partnership with Turkey’s top culinary school

16th February 2021
A picture of MSA's culinary arts campus in Istanbul, Turkey.

CTH is delighted to announce that The Culinary Arts Academy (MSA) in Istanbul has become the latest new CTH Approved Teaching Centre and will begin running CTH Culinary Programmes this June 2021.

MSA is renowned both within Turkey, and around the world, for its excellent facilities and high standards of culinary training. They had previously been partnered with City & Guilds for their qualification assessment, but have decided to switch to CTH to take advantage of our unique hospitality industry focus and practical culinary support.

CTH Marketing & Business Development Director, Steve Beckworth, commented: “MSA is a beacon of quality chef training in the region, and one of the very largest too. This is an important strategic partnership for both CTH and MSA; one which has the potential to bring great benefits to students seeking to enter the professional culinary niche. As the world begins to exit the Covid lockdown era, we predict that a huge 'pent-up demand' for hospitality and entertainment will be released. MSA and CTH will be working together to train the culinary professionals who will launch their exciting careers by meeting this need.

Here is the actual Press Release from MSA:


15.02.2021

Ranked among the best culinary schools in the world with its vocational culinary training, The Culinary Arts Academy (MSA) has empowered its local and global development plans, signing a new collaboration agreement with the UK-based CTH (Confederation of Tourism and Hospitality), the leading qualifications awarding body focused solely on vocational education for the Hospitality, Culinary and Tourism industry.

With the vision of going beyond borders, The Culinary Arts Academy (MSA), one of the best vocational culinary schools in the world, is enhancing its cooperation with the qualifications awarding body Confederation of Tourism & Hospitality (CTH) as of February 2021. In this framework, with the changes to be made in the curriculum and the renewed programs, MSA takes its established Professional Cooking, Professional Pastry, Professional Food and Beverage Management, Professional Barista programs to another level, as well as adding new vocational programs such as F&B service standards, on-board F&B to its portfolio. The collaboration has strategic importance for MSA's new international campuses in Russia and Portugal, which will be operational by 2022.

The project's roadmap is ready

The roadmap of the MSA-CTH collaboration is already in place. At first step, the students who will join MSA in the new education term which will kick-off in June this year will be enrolling the CTH Professional Culinary Arts and Professional Pastry programs. The curricula has been revised and updated to better serve the students and industry’s current needs. Students who complete the programs successfully will receive an internationally recognised vocational education diploma within the framework of the European Union vocational education standards.

MSA founder Mehmet Aksel, who frequently emphasises the importance of vocational training, stated the following for the cooperation with CTH: "The most significant element in giving this decision is that CTH is a vocational training accreditation organisation focused and specialised solely on Culinary Arts, Hospitality, and Tourism. This will help us to offer more specific, flexible, and adaptable curricula, not limited by general frameworks. As MSA, we always felt the need to continuously update our training curricula even from term to term, due to the ever-changing environment in the culinary and hospitality world. We see ourselves and our vocational training as the spearhead in the culinary education arena. We have always demanded new modules and sometimes designed content-specific, custom programs exclusive to MSA with additional investment. MSA’s main objective has always been to give our students that ‘practical self-confidence’ in vocational skills, with the best designed and delivered education. We strongly believe that MSA’s education gives our students the best potential motivation to take their stand in any kitchen in the world as soon as they graduate.

Besides, our aim is that there should not be any technique that students are unfamiliar with, and even if they are unfamiliar, they should be able to comprehend and make up for it rapidly with the foundation training they received. So far, we have learned a lot from our international accreditors; we had many challenges both socially and culturally in explaining what culinary vocational training means in Turkey.

Today MSA is a renowned brand, recognised as the leader of its arena that changed the perception of vocational, technical training, an effective alternative to university education especially for specific industries. We are very determined in our objective of delivering the best possible training. We embrace the accreditors and corporations that support this objective and pave us the way towards our vision. Our job is to provide the best skill set to empower people to practice the profession they desire. With our trainings, we aim to turn candidates into well-equipped and influential professionals in both the local and global industry. Our objective is to ensure that they easily find jobs and improve themselves quickly all over the world."

The focus is not on the exams but on improving the skills

Aksel highlights that all curriculum is completely evaluated and changes are made with CTH consultants and MSA trainer chefs. He stated, "A progressively up-to-date curriculum and delivery is a must rather than a preference in such a changing environment. Nothing is written in the stone at MSA, anything has a potential to change, to develop. We have to challenge ourselves every day in order to pass that challenging mind to our students. The new programs are not exam-oriented; their focus is to improve the skills, getting the most mileage out of the practical classes. "Portfolio preparation" will be a new and effective tool in the new term, supporting students -and the trainer chefs- to actively track students’ development in time and enable them to create a growing compilation that can be used as a powerful presentation when taking their first step into the industry.

CTH improves its culinary programs with world-famous chefs

CTH, which stands for Confederation of Tourism & Hospitality, is a specialised vocational training awarding organisation whose focus is on food & beverage and hospitality. Defining its mission as providing ‘gold-standards of professional competence and expertise’, CTH provides certification by auditing and approving the international vocational education organisations' competencies as well as its own training programs. CTH is involved in powerful partnerships with international employers and academic institutions, each renowned in their field.

The training programs, which have been certified with internationally recognised CTH certification, are favoured by 25 universities worldwide and many global hospitality brands such as Intercontinental, Marriott, Sheraton, Radisson. CTH cooperates with organisations such as Star Alliance and Virgin Atlantic on travel agent certification competencies and training as well. These collaborations are of great importance for MSA's global plans and career opportunities that it can provide for its graduates.

MSA's professional programs will be carried out with CTH accreditation and certification in the next period. Along with this, the international diplomas and certificates that MSA offers to its students are recognised by these organisations, in cooperation with the accreditors such as City & Guilds, SQA (Scottish Qualifications Authority), and Pearson/Ed Excel, which continue to date, will be valid as well.


See what MSA is a world renowned culinary academy by viewing their video below:

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