How widespread is the current engineering shortage?
With growing demand for professionally qualified engineers, the problem is now being felt across the industry. One of the greatest challenges facing employers is the fact that aeronautical engineering skills are so transferable, which makes staff retention difficult in a highly competitive international marketplace.
How is training helping to overcome the problem?
Across the UK there are very few training providers. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic offer a limited number of places, as does Marshalls of Cambridge, but that's about it. The Newcastle Aviation Academy (NAA) is a UK-based consortium involving Newcastle College, City of Bristol College and Kingston University. Our students study a two-year foundation degree that equips them with the academic knowledge and skills they need to achieve their UK Civil Aviation Authority-approved European Aviation Safety Agency Part 66 certification B licence.
Our degree is mirrored by others across the UK, including courses at City of Bristol College and Kingston University, which is run in conjunction with the KLM Technical College at Norwich. It's not just restricted to the civilian or UK sectors. The Royal Navy and British Army use a similarly structured syllabus, while the Sri Lankan Aviation Academy has already adopted the course. Further developments are in the pipeline for Oman, India and Malaysia.
Who pays for the course?
Because we deliver a foundation degree, the NAA attracts funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. So our students are trained to the required CAA standards through the state education system. The degree syllabus has been tailored to match the EASA licence syllabus.
The City of Bristol College is an EASA 147 approved organisation, so under their umbrella all our students sit degree examinations in the morning and then the CAA approved licence exams in the afternoon. Graduates then need two further years experience with an EASA 147 approved organisation to secure their B licence.
So NAA's graduate engineers are in demand?
We've had some excellent successes in placing our graduates. Here at Newcastle our entire first cohort of graduates secured employment and it's a similar situation with last year's graduates. However, we still come across reluctance from the industry to recruit graduates for the final two years of their training. There seems to be a perception that we're training academics, which is totally wrong. EASA requirements state that 50% of the training has to be practically based.
How do you overcome this reluctance?
The NAA offers a course designed to meet a national need, but which affects the entire international aviation market. However, we can only do so much. When it comes to giving engineering students the experience they need, we need the industry's help. The problem is not going to go away. With growing demand and increasing levels of retirements, we need to start developing tomorrow's engineers today.
Source: Flight International
