More Women Pilots needed in Nigeria - Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT)

Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) - The Rector of  Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Capt. Chinyere Kalu, in Abuja on Wednesday urged women to show more interest in becoming pilots.
Kalu gave the advice during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) after the opening ceremony of the ongoing African Aviation Training Organisation (AATO) Assembly.
She said more women needed to enrol in the aviation college to study to become pilots in order to add to the few number of women pilots in the country.
She also said such enrolment would enable the women to match up with their male counterparts.

According to Kalu, most pilots in the aviation sector in Nigeria currently are men and foreigners because many dedicated women are not showing interest in the industry.
We have been encouraging females because we need more female pilots in the country.
"Whenever they come for interviews we normally encourage them although we are not going to compromise our standard," she said.

Kalu said that some of the challenges facing the industry were inadequate funds and equipment.
She said there was a period when the college was grounded for seven years because of the lack of facilities.
Nothing was going on and the economy was very bad so during that time we were not training,” said.

Kalu said more than 90 per cent of pilots who flew helicopters in Nigeria,  especially for the oil companies, were foreigners, because of the lack of equipment for local training.
Over 90 per cent of our pilots that fly the helicopters and man our oil industries are foreigners.
But if we have these facilities here that will encourage our people to do their training here and increase the number of Nigerian pilots,’’ she said.

Kalu said the Federal Government had supported NCAT but that more facilities and equipment were needed to ensure that the school became the best in Africa and beyond.
She said part of the reasons why some pilots, who graduated from NCAT, travelled abroad to be re-certified was because they believed they did not have enough local training.
She said that NCAT did not have the statutory power to issue licence or certify  pilots.
Our Nigerian pilots are highly acceptable but when we do our training we are not the ones that issue the licence or the certification.

"It is the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) that issues it so it is acceptable worldwide," Kalu said.

Source - News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)