Recently, the Rector of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Capt. Adebayo Araba, addressed the media in Zaria where he spoke about the milestones recorded by the college, the planned self-sustaining strategy of the institution as well as training of adequate indigenous aviation personnel to take over from expatriates. IME AKPAN was there for LEADERSHIP. Excerpts.
The International Aviation Training College, Ilorin is coming on stream. What are the areas of collaboration and cooperation between NCAT and the new institution and what efforts have been made to return the college to its lost glory?
It is a private college. If you really look at it, you will know that aviation training is capital intensive. When the idea was mooted a few years ago, I knew that they would not be able to meet up without recourse to whatever they have got to do. The last date for commencement was August 1,2011 but I doubt whether they have started.
This does not mean that they are not going to start, but it entails a lot of things. The chairman met with us, and we had a discussion.We are going to assist them because no matter how one looks at it,we turn down maybe 95 per cent of the people that applied for admission in this college, for so many reasons.
This college is a federal government establishment and there are some things we must comply with to get going, for instance, quota system.We advertise, and a lot of capable people are applying to come and fly or to be in the engineering school or ATS, but at the end of the day, because of the limitations we are having, we cannot take more than one candidate from each state, not that the others are not competent or qualified, but because the accommodation we have is also limited .
Now, with Ilorin, which is purely private, coming on stream, there is not going to be anything like quota. You apply and if you are good and have the capacity, they will take you.But here we are limited.
Maybe with the new orientation, we may have to change our own policy as well. Anybody coming up to do exactly what we are doing is welcome and I have given them the assurance that we will always be there to assist them if they call upon us, because if you really look at it, they are Nigerians and they are going to be training Nigerians.Most of their customers are going to be Nigerians and it becomes our own sole responsibility to make sure that we get rid of expatriates legally by encouraging the training of more students.
That is why I have given the assurance that we are going to support them in totality.I told the chairman, Capt Edward Boyo, that anything they want, he should tell us, be it aeroplane, flight or ground instructors.They are not competing with us; they cannot because if you really look at it, with what they have on ground now, there is no reason for comparison because this is what we have been doing for over 40 years and they are just coming on board. They are not going to compete with us; they are just going to complement whatever we have on ground, which is a welcome idea.
On reclaiming NCAT’s lost glory, I would say that I came to this college on May 1, 2008. At that time, practically there was no flying going on. Before I even came, the college had to go and hire an airplane with private instructors to come and commence training. Before I came, for so many years there was no graduation, but now I can boast that as at the end of July, we graduated over 2,055 Nigerians. We have got new training equipment and facilities in place. A time is coming when flight training will be done 24 hours each day.
What about affiliation with other degree awarding institutions, either locally or internationally?
We are talking with about two universities in Nigeria, the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State and the University of Uyo and two other universities abroad. Things like these always take a pretty long time because they have to come for assessment, submit their papers,it is a lengthy process.
When will NCAT commence helicopter training and what is the level of cooperation with Bristow helicopters in terms of personnel training and equipment?
We have really gone far with the helicopter training, gone far in the sense that we have got two helicopters now that is Benz 206 on order. The first stage has been completed. They have now moved the carcass from Canada to the United States and in a fortnight, we are going for inspection. Initial payment has been made and I am very optimistic that before the end of the year, we are going to commence the rotary wing training. Bristow Helicopters has been very helpful. A majority of whatever operations they have now in Nigeria is based on rotary wing and they have been very supportive. They have sent to us a lot of books and tools concerning helicopter operations and they have even given the impression that with time they will be sending their personnel here to assist us.
What steps are being taken to install the railway lights?
We were very close to fixing the lights some months ago, but we lost the opportunity. We lost it in the sense that the contract was awarded and somewhere along the line, it was reversed. The World Bank was handling it on our behalf, but somewhere along the line something went bad and the bank had to reverse its decision on that for the reason best known to them. They copied us why they took that decision. However, we have started doing something on our own to be able to fix the runway lights.
Apart from government funding, what are the sources of your internally generated revenue?
As it is now, the main source of our IGR is the ticket sales charge and also the sale of forms and school fees. Recently, I directed that any student owing school fees should not be allowed until the fee was cleared. We don’t do caritas operations here or Salvation Army. So many years ago, because of the problems we were having in the aviation industry, we were doing a lot of training without recourse to school fees. But now because of the new orientation in the ministry, everyone has to pay school fees now.It is mandatory for the continuation of training.
Maybe I should say this to you, the orientation the present administration is bringing to the college and even to the ministry in total is a bit different now. There is this plan of privatisation and commercialisation of all the agencies, including this college. So some of the things we were doing before and relying on the government are going to be solely the responsibility of the college now.
Do you think the IGR will be enough for you to run the school and purchase the necessary equipment for effective training,won’t this affect your school fees?
We are charging N7.5million about $50,000 for a pilot training; you cannot get it cheaper than this anywhere else in the world. But this N7.5million we are charging is all-inclusive, that means accommodation and feeding. In overseas, it is only tuition, accommodation and feeding are separate.
We are still going to maintain the status quo because if you look at the economy of this country how many families can really afford this amount? Like I said, aviation is capital intensive; even at that we still have one or two people going abroad for this training; so we are going to leave it at N7.5million for the time being with the permission of the federal government.
Recently, there was an accident involving an OAS helicopter that crashed in Osun State. What would you say about the accident since some people said the pilot who flew the helicopter was more or less adventurous?
The OAS crash has nothing to do with what we are doing here. There is an agency handling that matter. However, being a pilot, I should be able to say one or two things. Once there is a crash involving any aircraft, rotary or fixed wing, you cannot jump to the conclusion by saying the nationality of the pilot is this or the aircraft is that because whenever there is an aircraft problem, there is a chain reaction.
Everybody will get involved; the mechanic that signed out the aircraft, the pilot that flew it, the company that even made the aircraft; they are all involved to determine the cause of the crash. As of today, I don’t think the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) has issued any statement regarding the crash.
But I’ve heard about the interim report which I have not been privy to. I would advise that we leave that one since it has nothing to do with what we are doing here. We train pilots and I can say that right from inception of this college to date,this college started in 1964 and flight training started in 1965,we have not had any crash in this country that involves any student of this college. The training here is comprehensive and we teach a lot of things that in case of problems or whatever they become handy. I am not saying that we are the best training institution in the world, but we can be rated as one of the best globally because of our track record.
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