The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria on Monday hosted 69 Secondary Schools across Nigeria on excursion to commemorate the 2019 Children’s Day Celebration.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the ceremony tagged: “Next Generation of Aviation Professionals and NCAT Open Day Programme” was held at the college premises in Zaria, Kaduna State.
The Rector, NCAT, Capt. Abdussalami Mohammed, said that the college attained a status of regional training centre of excellence in 2017 as recognised by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
“One of the mandates of the college being a regional centre of excellence is for us to reach out and develop interest among our youths to pursue careers in aviation.
“Both the International Civil Aviation Organisation and International Air Transport Association realised that from the current aircraft orders, there is going to be a severe shortage of skilled manpower in the aviation industry.
“This is based purely on new aircraft orders. They looked at the current level of skilled manpower attrition rate, considering the fact that, we have a lot of aging workforce in the industry.”
According to Mohammed, these two factors combined indicated to them that there is the need for everybody involved to sit up and start working on how to fill in the impending gap.
He said the ICAO came up with a programme called Next Generation of Aviation Professionals where students from secondary schools and universities were being sensitised on careers in the aviation industry.
The Rector said the exercise had taken an international dimension, adding that the ICAO had been holding annual conferences and NCAT subscribed fully to the progrmme.
“We have been sending representatives to these conferences being held in different parts of the world, my Deputy attended one as far back as 2010 and 2017 in Canada and my Technical Adviser and myself attended the last one in China in December last year.
“That one actually involved students from about 50 universities across the globe, so NCAT in its bit to be more prominent and active in this strive decided to set up an outreach team that will go out within the country.
‘’This is to sensitise both the industry and the schools on the training activities the college carries out.
‘’For most people, when you say you are training in Zaria, they think we train only pilots, so we go out of our way to let them know that training of pilot is just one of the components, it is just one school out of five schools.
“Even the pilot training being done in the flying school is not the only thing done, we also train cabin crew and flight dispatchers,” he said.
Mohammed said that the college decided to open up and launch the programme to a wider audience by organising the open day apart from receiving batches of students who come on occasional visits.
“Where we open our doors to any interesting student to come and have a tour of our facilities to see for himself or herself what training opportunities are available in this college.
“So that by the time they graduate from secondary school, for those of them who are interested then they have a clear pass or where they want to go in terms of pursuing a career in aviation,
‘’This is what informed the decision to have this open day,” he said.
The Rector said today, being May 27th, there can’t be any other day to suit the programme better than it, adding that most schools look for activities to engage the students.
He said they anticipated about 1,500 students, adding that the turnout shows a great number close to that figure if not more.
While appreciating the schools that participated in the event, Mohammed also thanked those who travelled long distances from other states to grace the occasion.
A cross section of the students interviewed thanked the college for the unique opportunity and expressed appreciation for the visit while they indicated interest to pursue career in aviation.
NAN reports that each of the 69 schools in attendance presented 25 students each, while each of the students took home a gift from the college. (NAN)
