The Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) Zaria, has announced that, it will open Airport Emergency Training School and another school for training of aviation security personnel to enhance its training capacity and as well retain its position as regional centre of excellence.
Mohammed said as part of the requirements to be certified as regional centre of excellence, the college was required to develop standard training packages by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
He further said, the college had developed ICAO standard training packages in 2017 for the certification, and since then, had increased the number of standardised training packages from three to seven.
“We are in the process of opening a new school called the airport emergency training school; that is where we will be training airport rescue and firefighting personnel.
“That is where we are installing fully automatic fire simulator. We are also in the process of establishing the school for training aviation security personnel,” he said.
According to the rector, the college is in the process of developing ICAO training packages for online delivery of courses, instead of the classrooms.
He noted that COVID-19 had changed the way of doing business in the world which had greatly affected NCAT training, adding that throughout the COVID-19 lockdown, the college introduced virtual classrooms for its students.
The rector said the college also introduced new courses in the flying school such as the Airline Transport Pilot Licence, which was like a masters degree for the pilots.
He added that the college also introduced Multi Crew Coordination Course (MCC) for pilots and Jet Orientation for pilots.
“These two courses were aimed at preparing the newly graduated pilots from flying school to prepare them for work in the commercial airline industries,’’ he said.
Mohammed said the college embarked on re-fleeting of its training aircrafts to upgrade the equipment, so that the training aircrafts would be fleeted with modern electronic flight instrument systems which came in a modern aircraft.
He added that the college had purchased seven Diamond Aircrafts out of the 20 aircrafts which it planned to buy, stressing that the re-fleeting would enable the college train more pilots.
He said, “The Diamond Aircrafts use Jet A1 which is the fuel the big commercial passenger jets use and it is readily available and it costs one quarter of what we paid for the Avgas.’’
Mohammed said the amendment of the College Establishment Act had commenced, adding that the exercise would enable it to access Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) grants.
“To that effect, the bill was sent by the President to the National Assembly earlier this year and it has already passed the first and second readings, it is now waiting for public hearing.
“Unfortunately, COVID-19 restriction has caused delay for the public hearing, but I understand that the National Assembly is making arrangement to have the public hearing very soon.
“Once the bill is passed into law,, the college will be recognised as a tertiary institution,’’ Mohammed said.